Publication

Since the fall of Tripoli in August 2011 tensions have escalated into a power struggle between the thuwar - the revolutionary fighters - and the politicians. Increasingly, the government has viewed the thuwar as an impediment to establishing a new security force. It has recruited from the pre-existing order for the bulk of security force personnel, nervous that rebellious, undisciplined thuwar would be ill suited to promoting its plans for law and order. But its measures have only exacerbated centrifugal forces surfacing across Libya, which the government is ill placed to contain.