After his successful coup d'etat in 1969, the young and brash Colonel Muammar Qadhafi broke many of Libya's residual colonial links, but at a huge cost - a new authoritarianism which became increasingly repressive as the country was condemned to pariah status by an America exasperated with Libya's radicalism and apparent links to terrorist groups. The final irony, as Libya now seeks to carve a fresh path in the 21st century, is that the most dramatic episode in the country's recent history - the accusation that it masterminded the Lockerbie tragedy - has provided a way for Libya to achieve at least some rehabilitation within the international community, by acceding to the trial of two of its citizens and appearing to tolerate (albeit under protest) the guilty verdict on one. This text describes the principal events which have shaped contemporary Libya. It reviews Libya's independence process, its territorial disputes with neighbours, the many abuses of human rights perpetrated by the Qadhafi regime, state terrorism and the US manipulation of the United Nations in its confrontation with Libya. Published in association with the Centre for Libyan Studies, Oxford.

Free Libya! was the chant heard throughout Libya during the Arab Spring revolution that ended with the death of Colonel Gadaffi in October 2011. The story is about British involvement in Libya since the first treaty signed with the rulers in Tripoli in January 1692. The book is divided into four eras. The first covers the period up to the Italian invasion in 1911; the second covers the First World War and Italian pacification; the third covers the Western Desert Campaign; and the final part brings the reader up to date with recent events. In the words of the Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, the 1911 Italian invasion of Libya “led straight to the catastrophe of 1914”. Using memoirs of politicians and correspondents from both sides of the conflict, the author pieces together British involvement, shedding new light on the Senussi Campaign and the Duke of Westminster’s rescue of 100 British PoWs at Bir Hakkeim, as well as the story of Colonel Milo Talbot, who did as much as TE Lawrence to establish British influence with Arab leadership, but was never rewarded for his work. Even though hundreds of books have been written about the Western Desert Campaign, this book includes much unpublished material in addressing the contentious issues and explains why General Brian Horrocks wrote: “Command in the desert was regarded as an almost certain prelude to a bowler hat”. The final part of the book begins with Britain’s operations to establish Libya as an independent kingdom and the rise of nationalism that led to Gadaffi’s coup in 1969. The story of the tense relationship with the Brotherly Leader during the “Line of Death” era and subsequent rapprochement precedes an authoritative account of the 2011 revolution. The final chapter, brings the reader up to date with the current conflict as well as the migration crisis and the Manchester Arena bombers.

Established in June 2014, New-Med is a research network of Mediterranean experts and policy analysts with a special interest in the complex social, political, cultural and security-related dynamics that are unfolding in the Mediterranean region. The network is developed by IAI, in cooperation with the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna, the Compagnia di San Paolo of Turin, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and the German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States. At the core of the New-Med activities stands the need to rethink the role of multilateral, regional and sub-regional organisations, to make them better equipped to respond to fast-changing local and global conditions and to address the pressing demands coming from Mediterranean societies all around the basin. This volume examines the goals and prospects of the OSCE’s growing engagement in the Mediterranean region and, more specifically, with the OSCE’s six Mediterranean Partners for Cooperation (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia). The volume’s four chapters focus on the OSCE’s potential role in international efforts to stabilize Libya, a country which has been ravaged by a prolonged and destructive civil war, becoming the epicenter of conflict dynamics with far-reaching implications for both neighbouring countries and Europe. Each chapter addresses a particular theme, or level of analysis, tied to the current conflict in Libya. Beginning with an introductory chapter outlining the OSCE’s growing engagements in the Mediterranean region and Libya’s abortive requests to joint the OSCE Mediterranean Partnership, subsequent chapters delve into the minute details of the major internal and external obstacles to peace-building and stabilization in Libya, addressing the role of regional, European and international actors involved in the country. A final chapter delivers a Russian viewpoint of these themes and traces Moscow’s evolving policy and interests in Libya while addressing the broader role of the OSCE in the Mediterranean.

In this incisive account, scholar Horace Campbell investigates the political and economic crises of the early twenty-first century through the prism of NATO’s intervention in Libya. He traces the origins of the conflict, situates it in the broader context of the Arab Spring uprisings, and explains the expanded role of a post-Cold War NATO. This military organization, he argues, is the instrument through which the capitalist class of North America and Europe seeks to impose its political will on the rest of the world, however warped by the increasingly outmoded neoliberal form of capitalism. The intervention in Libya—characterized by bombing campaigns, military information operations, third party countries, and private contractors—exemplifies this new model. Campbell points out that while political elites in the West were quick to celebrate the intervention in Libya as a success, the NATO campaign caused many civilian deaths and destroyed the nation’s infrastructure. Furthermore, the instability it unleashed in the forms of militias and terrorist groups have only begun to be reckoned with, as the United States learned when its embassy was attacked and personnel, including the ambassador, were killed. Campbell’s lucid study is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this complex and weighty course of events.

It took three decades for the United States government-spanning and working assiduously over five different presidential administrations (Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II , and Obama)-to terminate the 1969 Qaddafi Revolution, seize control over Libya’s oil fields, and dismantle its Jamahiriya system. This book tells the story of what happened, why it happened, and what was both wrong and illegal with that from the perspective of an international law professor and lawyer who tried for over three decades to stop it. Francis Boyle provides a comprehensive history and critique of American foreign policy toward Libya from when the Reagan administration came to power in January of 1981 up to the 2011 NA TO war on Libya that ultimately achieved the US goal of regime change, and beyond. He sets the record straight on the series of military conflicts and crises between the United States and Libya over the Gulf of Sidra, exposing the Reagan administration’s fraudulent claims of Libyan instigation of international terrorism put forward over his eight years in office. Boyle reveals the inside story behind the Lockerbie bombing cases against the United States and the United Kingdom that he filed at the World Court for Colonel Qaddafi acting upon his advice-and the unjust resolution of those disputes. Deploying standard criteria of international law, Boyle analyzes and debunks the UN R2P “responsibility to protect” doctrine and its immediate predecessor, “humanitarian intervention”. He addresses how R2P served as the basis for the NATO assault on Libya in 2011, overriding the UN Charter commitment to state sovereignty and prevention of aggression. The purported NATO protection in actuality led to 50,000 Libyan casualties, and the complete breakdown of law and order. And this is just the beginning. Boyle lays out the ramifications: the destabilization of the Maghreb and Sahel, and the French intervention in Mali-with the USA/NATO/Europe starting a new imperial scramble for the natural resources of Africa. This book is not only a classic case study of the conduct of US foreign policy as it relates to international law, but a damning indictment of the newly-contrived R2P doctrine as legal cover for Western intervention into third world countries.

This book offers a novel, incisive and wide-ranging account of Libya's '17 February Revolution' by tracing how critical towns, communities and political groups helped to shape its course. Each community, whether geographical (e.g. Misrata, Zintan), tribal/communal (e.g. Beni Walid) or political (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood) took its own path into the uprisings and subsequent conflict of 2011, according to their own histories and relationship to Muammar Qadhafi's regime. The story of each group is told by the authors, based on reportage and expert analysis, from the outbreak of protests in Benghazi in February 2011 through to the transitional period following the end of fighting in October 2011. They describe the emergence of Libya's new politics through the unique stories of those who made it happen, or those who fought against it. The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath brings together leading journalists, academics, and specialists, each with extensive field experience amidst the constituencies they depict, drawing on interviews with fighters, politicians and civil society leaders who have contributed their own account of events to this volume.

A riveting, beautifully crafted account of Libya after Qadhafi. The death of Colonel Muammar Qadhafi freed Libya from forty-two years of despotic rule, raising hopes for a new era. But in the aftermath, the country descended into bitter rivalries and civil war, paving the way for the Islamic State and a catastrophic migrant crisis. In a fast-paced narrative that blends frontline reporting, analysis, and history, Frederic Wehrey tells the story of what went wrong. An Arabic-speaking Middle East scholar, Wehrey interviewed the key actors in Libya and paints vivid portraits of lives upended by a country in turmoil: the once-hopeful activists murdered or exiled, revolutionaries transformed into militia bosses or jihadist recruits, an aging general who promises salvation from the chaos in exchange for a return to the old authoritarianism. He traveled where few Westerners have gone, from the shattered city of Benghazi, birthplace of the revolution, to the lawless Sahara, to the coastal stronghold of the Islamic State in Qadhafi’s hometown of Sirt. He chronicles the American and international missteps after the dictator’s death that hastened the country’s unraveling. Written with bravura, based on daring reportage, and informed by deep knowledge, TheBurning Shores is the definitive account of Libya’s fall.