Name: What’s Happening with the War in Libya? | Start Here
Uploaded: 2021-02-24T05:27:21.000Z
Duration: 6 min 7 s
Description: 利比亞內戰介紹学べる英語：

Let's talk about what's happening  with the war in Libya.

They've been fighting over the  capital Tripoli since last April.

And now, world leaders in Berlin  have promised to observe

an existing arms embargo  that was being ignored.

But the permanent ceasefire deal  they had hoped for went nowhere.

After Berlin, people will be watching what this renegade general does next.

And what's the battle  for Tripoli all about?

The fighting in Libya  has been on and off

ever since the Arab Spring  uprising in 2011.

Part of the problem was the killing of Muammar Gaddafi that year.

Libya is a country full  of different tribes

and Gaddafi's strategy towards governing Libya for 40 years

was to play those tribes off  against one another.

Once Gaddafi was out of the picture  the place became lawless.

Tribes and militias that had fought together to overthrow Gaddafi

turned against each other to fill the power vacuum created by his death.

Fighting hasn't really stopped since and if it did it didn't for long.

And right now there's a  battle for Libya's capital.

The man who wants to take  over is Khalifa Haftar.

In the late 1960s Haftar was Gaddafi's friend and helped put him in power.

He became one of Libya's  top military leaders.

But in the late '80s one of Haftar's missions in Chad went wrong

and long story short he  fell out with Gaddafi

and ended up living in  the US for 20 years.

Haftar only came back to Libya  once the Arab Spring hit.

He eventually set himself up in the east and started consolidating power.

With help from Egypt and  the United Arab Emirates

he built what he called the  Libyan National Army.

It's estimated the LNA has  at least 25,000 fighters.

Khalifa Haftar's career as we know him today really began in July 2013.

what Sisi was for Egypt he was  going to try and be in Libya.

He realised that there was a need  for a classical, conventional

Arab-Sunni military  figure with of course

it goes without saying, an  autocratic slant to it all.

One thing that's important  in understanding Libya

is that it has two  rival administrations.

the House of Representatives based  in the east in the city of Tobruk.

The other is known as the  Government of National Accord.

The GNA works out of Tripoli  and is recognised by the UN.

It relies on what's left of  Libya's formal military

But some of Haftar's allies  like Egypt and the UAE

have a problem with the GNA,  mainly its links to political Islam links

Because those ideological  currents are seen as a threat

to the regimes that decided  to support Haftar in 2014.

The problem that Haftar has with any government, whether it's above him

or opposed to him or one that  has been appointed by him

Here's something else about  Haftar: he's unpredictable.

were going somewhere and  the UN and other world

But in April 2019, just days before a  UN peace conference on Libya

Haftar surprised everyone with  an assault on Tripoli.

“Haftar's forces have been trying  to seize the capital Tripoli

Since then Haftar has been fighting militias loyal to the GNA.

And now he's got new  help from mercenaries

The battle has displaced  thousands of people

and more than 200 civilians  have been killed.

He promised at the time that he was going to be able to, in three days

enter Tripoli to eradicate corruption, dismantle all the militias

and topple the GNA. So it  was a crazy adventure

in the sense that it was  remarkably ambitious.

Right now world powers are trying  to get the rival sides to agree

to a ceasefire but there are more countries involved in Libya than ever.

On the GNA's side you've got the  UN, Italy, Qatar and Turkey

whose parliament recently approved sending ground forces to Tripoli.

Like Egypt, France, Russia,  Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

A lot of states have supported him, mainly the United Arab Emirates

who have run a full-blown fleet  of combat drones out of Libya

with daily air strikes,  which have turned out

to be very destructive but  not very effective.

And what are some of the things  that world powers want?

Well countries like Turkey want the GNA to survive because among other

things it wants drilling rights for oil  and gas in the Mediterranean.

Libya also has a lot of oil  and countries like Italy

have oil companies in there  that they want to protect.

Others say they're serious  about stabilising a country

And if you're wondering  how bad it could get

Germany says Libya could  become a “second Syria”.