Commentary
Italy and Gomorrah of Libya
We found ourselves dealing not with a state, however fragile and endowed with large energy resources long coveted by ENI, but with the world of Libyan organized crime. To contain migration, we relied on criminals.
Deadly score-settling and factional clashes are ongoing in Tripolitania, with an advance by General Khalifa Haftar’s troops from Benghazi to Sirte: Libya is getting out of control – especially any control by Giorgia Meloni’s government, which at one point last Wednesday even considered evacuating Italians from the country.
This confusion and the constant seesaw of Libyan factions and clans stem essentially from Italy’s and Europe’s choice to abandon any political strategy. The greatest military influence now lies with Turkey in the west and Putin’s Russia, patron of General Haftar, in the east, in Cyrenaica. But while Erdoğan and Putin are talking to each other, even at a distance, we are only getting second-hand, carefully “pre-digested” information from the Turkish sultan, and none at all from Moscow, which has just welcomed Haftar with pomp: the general now enjoys military backing not only from Moscow but also from Turkey, which once openly opposed him and intervened in 2019 to defend the Sarraj government in Tripoli. The world changes fast – and In Italy we tend to only notice with a slight but fatal delay.
Italy and Europe have made a choice in Libya that is understandable in the short term – above all, for propaganda aimed at public opinion – but short-sighted. Under the veneer of international agreements meant to provide a semblance of legality, Italy has set up the “Libyan system”, a corruption-based mechanism under which Italy and Europe are paying Libyans in exchange for the violent repression of migration flows. This is how we found ourselves dealing not with a state, however fragile and endowed with large energy resources long coveted by ENI, but with the world of Libyan organized crime. To contain migration, we relied on criminals.
The case of General Almasry is exemplary, who is part and parcel of this system. Known as a torturer of migrants and head of Mitiga prison, he is a criminal who built his reputation on a reign of terror marked by abuse, rape and murder. Wanted by the Hague International Criminal Court, he was arrested in Turin and then released on a technicality amid the hypocritical silence of the Justice Minister.
We are in such “good hands” in Libya that last Monday in Tripoli, another of our “friends” from the Libyan repression system was taken out under unclear circumstances: Abdulghani al Kikli, nicknamed “Ghnewa,” head of the powerful Stabilization Support Apparatus. Like Almasry, Al Kikli was repeatedly sighted in Italy, coming and going as an undisturbed guest. His militias were partly responsible for the prisons where migrants are locked up, and his name appears in several UN dossiers on abuse and torture in the jails operated by his troops. He was known as the “lord of Abu Salim”, Gaddafi’s infamous old prison that never stopped swallowing up victims even after the fall of the rais.
What explains this chaos in Tripolitania? We are looking at power and money struggles, with Prime Minister Dbeibah’s government stepping in through the support of other militias, particularly Brigade 444, formed by fighters from Misrata and deemed close to the premier – the man who is signing agreements with Italy and Europe. Anyone who crosses certain red lines is eliminated. That was the fate of Bija, the notorious Zawiya smuggler killed near Tripoli last summer; and that was also behind the attempted but failed hit on Interior Minister Adel Juma on February 12. Hospitalized for months in Rome, he was visited in March by Al Kikli himself. In the whirlwind of Libyan alliances and rivalries, whoever is in charge keeps his gun cocked at all times, and Italy as a country is caught in the middle.
The absence of a real political strategy on Libya has led to the rise of General Haftar, a former Gaddafi officer who in 20 years of exile in the United States also became an American citizen. The field marshal, who holds Cyrenaica and the Libyan National Army in his grip, recently took a trip to Moscow, invited on May 9 to the Day of Victory parade. He is playing a geopolitical game that could result in new balances of power amid the Libyan chaos. Russia, after partly withdrawing from Syria, has chosen Libya as its new African and Mediterranean outpost. But the real surprise was last April, when Haftar sent his son Saddam to Ankara, mending fences with Turkey, which in 2020 had stopped him at the gates of Tripoli. Haftar secured Turkish drones, training for 1,500 LNA troops and joint naval exercises. In short, Turkey – which maintains bases in Tripolitania – is now offering itself as mediator to unify Libya’s armed forces. The sultan in Ankara has strategies; Italy, it seems, is left only with the Libyan version of the Gomorrah TV show.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/litalia-e-la-gomorra-di-libia on 2025-05-15