Violence Escalates in Libya

The head of UNSMIL, Bernardino Leon, recently decried the April 20 bombing of the Spanish embassy in Tripoli, the latest in a wave of ongoing terror and conflict in Libya. The attack claimed no lives but the outer wall of the embassy sustained considerable structural damage. Mr. Leon called for a movement towards peace and towards stronger security controls in the country.

This most recent attack, along with prior attacks such as the 2012 attacks against the U.S. embassy in Benghazi which claimed four American lives, constitutes a great political and humanitarian disaster on multiple levels. The most recent outbreak of violence in Libya was initiated in May 2014 by rebel leader and parliamentary loyalist Gen. Khalifa Haftar, against Nouri Abusahmain's General National Congress, but since then many militant Islamist organizations have taken stakes in the fighting and made significant territorial and power gains in Libya. ISIL currently lays claim to Derna and Sirte and the surrounding oil refineries as part of their Libyan province. Over 3,000 have died since the beginning of the conflict as a result of the fighting, and many more have been displaced or kidnapped. The infighting has also rendered Libya's borders extremely porous, which has contributed to the growing refugee issue in the Mediterranean. Because the current conflict is far more intractable than the former, manageability of this disaster is low. Peace and stability must be achieved before the conflict spreads and spirals out of control; Libya is within long-range artillery of parts of Italy and missile range of all of continental Europe. A favorable outcome to the civil war is needed.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50654#.VUJ0lSHBzGc