A Libyan protester holds a gun during clashes between demonstrators and troops of the Libyan Shield Forces (LSF), following a demonstration outside the LSF office in the northern city of Benghazi on June 8, 2013. (ABDULLAH DOMA/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]In the latest in a series of assassinations targeting Libyan activists and government officials, General Military Prosecuter Yousef Al-Asayfer and his brother were killed by a car bomb last Thursday as they were leaving a mosque in Benghazi. Asayfer’s death comes after the shooting of Col. Abdul-Wahab Mohammed Abdussalam Al-Lafi in early August and the killing of the commander of the Sebha Security Support Forces, Col. Fozi El-Ujali, who also died in a car bomb attack.
As the interior minister, Mohamed Sheikh, weakly asserted back in July, when the assassinations first began, the killings seem “systematic,” though the motivations behind the campaign remain unclear. However, these recent events seem to have emerged from two major obstacles currently being faced by the post-revolutionary country: a growing lack of faith in the Libyan government and the increasing power of various militia groups throughout the country.
Three militia groups in particular have been emboldened by the government’s inability to keep control over the country and by an influx of weaponry: the Libyan Shield Forces, a coalition of brigades based in the Western city of Misrata, the Zintan Brigade, which has Gaddafi's son, Saif, in their custody, and the Eastern federalists, who have shut down several oil ports with armed protests. These three groups have been jockeying for power in different parts of the country, but with thousands of willing fighters and massive weapon supplies—which, in the case of Libyan Shield Forces, overwhelm that of the government's army—they do not have to try very hard.
Trust in the General National Congress and the Libyan government is dwindling, especially as the administration continues to suffer from high-profile resignations and engages in the bitter infighting that has delayed the creation of a new constitution. The government’s best efforts to take control of the worsening situation also seem to have backfired on them: the Ministry of Defense formed the Libyan Shield Forces in an attempt to integrate the country’s rogue militias into the government's army. Based in Misrata, the Libyan Shield Forces work as a paramilitary police force, operating semi-autonomously from the central government.
Many Libyans, however, had grown weary of strengthening militia control. With a weak central government, the Libyan Shield Forces are often allowed to operate with impunity. Though they have brought some measure of law and order to the region, Libyans claim that the forces are corrupt and abuse their power to further their own self-interest. When the General National Congress was set to vote on a political isolation law that would ban anyone with former ties to the Gaddafi regime from keeping or pursing a position in the government, the Libyan Shield Forces helped protesters hold several government ministries under siege until the law was passed.
This, as well as other instances of militia violence, galvanized public sentiment against the militias. To Libyans, it has become more and more clear that the militias were leveraging their military might for political power. The events came to a climax when around 200 protesters gathered at the front of a Libyan Shield headquarters in Benghazi to call for the disbandment of the brigades. The forces once again responded with an attack. Over thirty-one people died in the clash between the militias and protesters.
With a dysfunctional congress, the proliferation of weapons and insubordinate militia forces, it is evident that the revolutionary spirit that toppled the Gaddafi regime has dulled, if not disappeared entirely. Libyans have become disillusioned with the congress and its inability to reign in the militias or collect the weapons used to terrorize them every day. If it wants to reassert control over the country, the GNC needs to find some way to disenfranchise the militias, but it is becoming less likely to happen with every passing day.
