TRIPOLI, Libya — A revolt by a renegade general against Islamists who dominate Libya’s politics threatened to spiral into an outright battle for power that could fragment the North African nation as the country’s numerous armed militias on Monday started to line up behind the rival camps.
Gen. Khalifa Hifter, who lived for years in exile in the United States during the rule of autocrat Moammar Gadhafi, touts himself as a nationalist who is waging a war against terrorism to save Libya from Islamic extremists. His loyalists and allies in the past days attacked Islamist militias in the eastern city of Benghazi and on Sunday stormed the Islamist-led parliament in Tripoli.
Hifter’s opponents accuse him of seeking to grab power, acting on behalf of former regime figures in exile by orchestrating an Egyptian-style military overthrow of Islamists that would wreck already struggling attempts at democracy.
Since Gadhafi’s ouster and death in a 2011 civil war, Libya has been in chaos. The central government has almost no authority. The military and police, shattered during the civil war, have never recovered and remain in disarray. Filling the void are hundreds of militias around the country. Many of them are locally based, rooted in specific cities or neighborhoods. Others are based on ethnic allegiances. Still others have embraced al-Qaida-inspired extremism.
The country has held several elections, including ones that created a new parliament. But administrations have been paralyzed by the competition between Islamist parties and their rivals, each of which are backed by militias. Islamist lawmakers who dominate parliament removed the Western-backed prime minister earlier this year and named an Islamist-leaning figure, Ahmed Maiteg, to replace him in a vote their opponents say was illegal.
In response to the parliament attack, the Islamist-leaning head of the legislature, Nouri Abu Sahmein, ordered militias backing his camp to deploy in Tripoli on Monday to resist what he called “the attempt to wreck the path of democracy and take power.”
The pro-parliament militias are largely from Libya’s third-largest city of Misrata, one of Islamists’ biggest constituencies. Footage posted online by Misrata forces showed hundreds of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, tanks and armored vehicles it said were ready to move into the capital.
But backing for parliament appeared to be eroding, including within the interim government installed by lawmakers after the prime minister’s removal.
The interim government, led by the defense minister, put forward a proposal for resolving the conflict. It said parliament should hold a new vote on a prime minister, pass a budget and then halt work to allow new parliament elections. Parliament’s mandate expired earlier this year, and Islamists’ opponents have held protests demanding it be dissolved.
Units of the weak military on Monday began splitting from their top generals to support Hifter.
