Briefing Paper August 2019 WHO IS FIGHTING WHOM IN TRIPOLI? How the 2019 Civil War is Transforming Libya’s Military Landscape Wolfram Lacher Who Is Fighting Whom in Tripoli? 1 Credits and contributors Series editor: Matt Johnson About the author (
[email protected]) Wolfram Lacher is a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Copy-editor: Alex Potter Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. He has worked on and conducted research in (
[email protected]) Libya since 2007, including in a previous capacity as an analyst at a business risk consultancy from 2007 to 2010. He has authored and co-authored numerous re- Proofreader: Stephanie Huitson ports, academic articles, and book chapters on the post-2011 conflicts in Libya (
[email protected]) and security issues in the Sahel–Sahara region. He studied Arabic and African Cartography: Jillian Luff languages, history, political science, and conflict and development studies in (www.mapgrafix.com) Leipzig, Paris, Cairo, and London, and holds a PhD in political science from Hum- boldt University in Berlin. His book Libya’s Fragmentation will be published by I.B. Design: Rick Jones Tauris in April 2020. (
[email protected]) Layout: raumfisch.de/sign berlin Acknowledgements Print: nbmedia, Geneva The author would like to thank Alaa al-Idrissi for his assistance in researching this Briefing Paper. Front cover photo Fighters loyal to the GNA walk on the front line outside Tripoli, May 2019. Source: Reuters 2 SANA Briefing Paper August 2019 Overview Introduction On 4 April 2019 forces loyal to ‘Field Mar- The offensive that Khalifa Haftar launched in April 2019 to shal’2 Khalifa Haftar, leader of the self- capture the Libyan capital, Tripoli, triggered the largest mo- styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF),3 bilization of fighters in western Libya since the revolutionary launched a large-scale offensive from LAAF bases in central and eastern Libya war of 2011.