Escalating conflict in Tripoli exposes the realities of false stability – and international neglect in Libya

The killing of Abdelghani al-Kikli, an armed group commander, has triggered internal conflicts over power and influence, shattering the relative calm that has prevailed since 2020.

Expert comment Published 16 May 2025 4 minute READ

Tim Eaton

Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme

On Monday night, images circulated of Abdelghani al-Kikli, a powerful armed group commander from Tripoli, lying dead. Kikli, known popularly as ‘Ghneiwa’, had travelled to the Tekbali military camp on Monday to meet with armed group commanders allied with Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dabaiba. The details of what happened are sketchy, but it appears that a gunfight led to the deaths of Ghneiwa and his bodyguards.

The escalating situation has revealed the reality that Libya’s so-called stability was much more fragile than it seemed. It also exposes the lack of seriousness of efforts to improve the country’s governance.

Ghneiwa’s power network

Ghneiwa was also referred to as ‘the mayor of Tripoli’, such was his power in the capital. Officially the commander of the Stability Support Apparatus (SSA), a state force, Ghneiwa’s strength emanated from his control of the Abu Slim district of Tripoli, from which he had established his rebel armed force in 2011.  

His group was integrated into the security architecture of the state from late 2011 onwards, but Ghneiwa was never really subject to an official chain of command. With one foot inside the state, allowing access to its resources and legitimation, and the other outside pursuing his own objectives, Ghneiwa’s influence appeared on the rise.

Prime Minister Dabaiba’s Government of National Unity has been competing with Ghneiwa for control of key state institutions, and tensions had been rising.

Indeed, before his death he had been expanding his ability to control the state’s most important institutions. Crucially, one of his lieutenants was in charge of the Central Bank of Libya’s cash deliveries, a pivotal role in Libya’s cash-based economy. Ghneiwa had also been at the forefront of efforts to coopt Libya’s Audit Bureau through the creation of a parallel structure. Had the move been successful, it would have allowed him to control spending on state supported projects by either withholding payments or undermining oversight.

The back story to Monday’s events was apparently 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 reality the dispute was wider: Prime Minister Dabaiba’s Government of National Unity (GNU) has been competing with Ghneiwa for control of key state institutions, and tensions had been rising.

Dabaiba seeks to emulate Haftar’s model?

In the east of Libya and much of its south, Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) have been able to consolidate control over all aspects of military, political and economic governance.

Dabaiba’s Tripoli-based GNU does not exert the same degree of control. It has been seeking to consolidate power by developing its armed forces, particularly the Joint Operations Force and the 111 Brigade, but also the 444 Brigade. The relative calm in its territory had been maintained through the distribution of resources rather than force.

Other native Tripoli armed groups besides the SSA have fallen in recent years, such as the once powerful Nawasi Brigade and the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade. But in neither case were the commanders killed.

Ghneiwa’s killing is a dramatic break with that pattern. SSA interests were immediately targeted after his death, with key allies in other state-affiliated forces removed. Other forces, such as the Department of the Countering of Illegal Migration, were reorganized to allow GNU supporters greater control.

The SSA seems to have immediately buckled. Key commanders and Ghneiwa allies fled: power had been monopolized in the authority of Ghneiwa and not effectively institutionalized.

However, the limits of the GNU’s move quickly became apparent. An attempt by the 444 Brigade to press home the advantage and a rapid move against SDF interests failed to immediately achieve its objectives.

This allowed forces from the cities of Zawiya and Zintan to join the fight, making the situation on the ground ever more complicated and the stakes higher. Prominent security actors in Zawiya and Zintan have aligned themselves with Haftar’s LAAF forces and have long sought a change in government in Tripoli. This has led to speculation that Haftar may seek to become involved.

Social forces in the city of Misrata, from where Dabaiba and his two closest commanders hail, have distanced themselves from the GNU’s approach. The internationally appointed Presidency Council, a three-person committee that functions as head of state, has rejected the GNU’s reorganization of the security sector. Tripoli is buzzing with discussions of how a transitional government could be appointed to oust the Dabaibas.

An uneasy ceasefire is in place on the ground, but the episode appears far from resolved. 

Thus, what started as an apparently successful attempt by Dabaiba-aligned forces to consolidate power has now escalated to the point where the GNU is imperilled.

The outcome is highly uncertain. Protests took place in several cities on Wednesday evening, including outside the prime minister’s office, demanding the removal of the government in response to the outbreak of violence. Demonstrators were dispersed by gunfire. An uneasy ceasefire is in place on the ground, but the episode appears far from resolved. 

The pitfalls of deals based on limited elite capture

After a ceasefire deal was signed in 2020 between forces from eastern and western Libya, there has been no progress made on reform of the Libya’s security sector, which remains entirely unaccountable. Military officers in charge of units outside those directly aligned with Dabaiba have been notably absent from events on the ground. Dabaiba remains in office four years into a term that was supposed to last eight months. 

The ‘stability’ that has been witnessed has been based upon mounting corruption and division of the state’s resources among competing powerbrokers. These deals have eroded institutions and the ability of the state to provide for the population.

Other countries have been active participants in these dynamics, prioritizing their own political, and commercial, interests. 

Few have pressed for meaningful political change, assuming that consolidation under the existing powerbrokers in east and west offered the path of least resistance, and the quickest path towards stability. This has left the UN Support Mission in Libya with little leverage over the country’s entrenched elites.

Those assumptions are now exposed as false. The price of this neglect is being paid by Tripoli’s residents, who have been subjected to heavy fighting in the streets of the capital. When the dust settles on this bout of conflict, efforts to find sustainable means of institutionalizing power and reigning in the security sector must be pursued with more vigour.

Following previous conflicts in Tripoli in 2014 and 2020, a fleeting opportunity to craft a new path emerged. In each case, governments fell and new arrangements emerged. Indeed, this was the route through which the GNU was appointed. But ultimately in both cases the opportunity was squandered. 

Libyans will have to hope it will be different this time. Otherwise, further bouts of conflict will follow.