Just last Septemeber, fighting between factions of the TPF, Misrata, and Zintan killed 115 individuals and left another 283 injured. Haftar’s recent military operation to take control of Tripoli has emboldened unlikely allies, drawing an alliance of militias from the nearby cities of Misrata and Zintan to fight against the LNA. The Tripoli Protection Force (TPF), a loose conglomerate of militias who have exploited Libya’s government and corrupted its economy, has protected the GNA for the past several years. The UN-backed Government of National Accord’s (GNA), the current interim government created under the terms of the 2016 Libyan Political Agreement, can hardly describe its security forces as integrated or unified. The LNA’s march on the capital is Haftar’s closing move: a high-stakes winner-take-all campaign, manifested in his discontent and frustration with the political process. Capitalizing on the success in the south, Haftar set his sights toward Tripoli after a blitzkrieg military campaign that captured the town of Gharyan, a geostrategic launching pad for his military assault on Tripoli, just 30 miles south of the capital. This strategy worked considerably well in the Fezzan, given the complex and fragile inter-tribal conflict that has destabilized southern Libya for years. Haftar’s campaign in southern Libya mostly comprised of negotiating with and buying off local militias in exchange for nominal loyalty. Last month, the LNA conducted a dextrous military campaign across Libya’s oil-rich Fezzan region, swiftly capturing Libya’s two largest oil fields: the Sahara and El-Feel. Haftar serves as the only commander capable of leading the patchwork of militias under one banner.
Bound together by a fragile network of tribal and local alliances, the LNA is led by General Khalifa Haftar, a former CIA asset-turned-military commander who oversees eastern Libya under his authoritarian rule. Of the hundreds of militias and armed groups scattered across the country, the Libyan National Army (LNA) has long been perceived as Libya’s only unified military organization.
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