It may be comparatively calm this week but Libya's western capital Tripoli remains in turmoil.

Earlier in May, violence broke out between armed groups and pro-government forces after Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah issued a decree ordering the dismantling of armed militias, including the influential Stabilization Support Apparatus, or SSA, militia. The head of the SSA was killed. 

According to the UN, the resulting violence killed eight civilians in Tripoli. Later another 58 bodies were found in a hospital under the SSA's control,

"The latest fighting in Tripoli that resulted in civilian casualties is a strong indication of the fragility of the situation," Hanan Salah, Libya researcher and associate director in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told DW. "The sheer recklessness of the warfare that Human Rights Watch documented in the middle of civilian neighborhoods shows the blatant disregard these armed groups have for the life and livelihoods of civilians," she said.

Country split in half

Since 2014, Libya has been split into two, with opposing governments located in the east and west of the country. A United Nations-backed administration known as the Government of National Unity is based in Tripoli in the west and headed by Dbeibah. Its rival, known as the House of Representatives, is based in the east, in Tobruk and headed by Prime Minister Ossama Hammad. He is supported by former warlord-turned-politician Khalifa Haftar.

In the east, Haftar has managed to consolidate control over various armed militias under his command, ruling with an iron fist. In the west, Dbeibah has tolerated different militias competing. Observers say the recent fighting in Tripoli indicates that Dbeibah is now trying to do the same as Haftar and consolidate control over militias in the west too.

In mid-May, the fighting ended after a few days with an undisclosed agreement between the militias and Dbeibah's administration. It was followed by popular protests. People demanded national elections as well as a return to the drafting of a constitution: Both were halted when a peace process under UN leadership failed in December 2021.Thousands also called for a Dbeibah's resignation.

Dbeibah did not address those calls. In a televised speech he said, "we will welcome all those who choose to stand with the state… and we will sideline those who resort to blackmail and corruption. Our goal is a Libya free of militias and corruption." 

Observers agree that Dbeibah's key objective is likely to consolidate power and influence. 

Unsolved problems

"In recent years the conflict [in Libya] has been frozen as the spoils have been divided among the various actors," Tim Eaton, a senior research fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at London-based think tank Chatham House, said.

Over time, "these groups had been competing against one another to grab ever greater parts of the Libyan state," he told DW.

In a recent piece for the think tank's website, Eaton wrote that the contest had been exacerbated this May over "a dispute over control of a state institution, the Libyan Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology Company, which operates valuable monopolies in the telecommunications sector."  

In his view, the current situation is very perilous. "There clearly is a threat of a slide into another bout of civil war," he told DW.

But, Eaton and other experts say, there's also some hope. 

"There is a real shot for the UN to capitalize on this moment to make some political progress," Eaton told DW. "This set of actions also seems to present an opportunity to reinvigorate the political track. When there were other outbreaks of significant conflict in Tripoli in 2014 and 2020, political change did follow," he pointed out. 

In 2014, fighting in Tripoli ended with the country splitting in half. In 2020, a UN-led political process to appoint a new government was started.

"So there is clearly an opportunity for such an occurrence to happen again," Eaton suggested.

New UN roadmap

This month's crisis could well "represent a significant opportunity to begin changing the course of events by moving toward holding parliamentary and presidential elections," agrees Mohamed Dayri, a former foreign minister for the Tobruk-based government in the east. "The first step in this direction is the formation of a unified government that ends the institutional division currently plaguing our country," he told DW.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, or UNSMIL, first launched in 2011 to help facilitate a political process that would lead to democratic elections in Libya, has published a new report that outlines four options which could serve as a roadmaptowards ending the country's difficult transitional phase.

The options include conducting presidential and legislative elections simultaneously or conducting parliamentary elections first, followed by the adoption of a permanent constitution. They also include adopting a permanent constitution before elections, or alternatively establishing a political dialogue committee to finalize electoral laws and define executive authority and a permanent constitution.

"Libya's parties have to come to a consensus," HRW's Salah points out. "The human rights crisis and political divisions in Libya will not be solved overnight," she told DW. "Conducting free and fair elections is elusive today but at the end of the day, what option do the competing Libyan parties really have?"

Edited by: C. Schaer