Clashes broke out overnight, but the forces responsible for protecting the official buildings withdrew to prevent the situation from deteriorating. Dozens of military vehicles and armed men belonging to this brigade have been gathering in the capital’s city center and on the streets of the Corniche since Thursday, 16 December.
Salah Badi, a militia leader close to the Muslim Brotherhood and representing the most difficult wing of the movement, is not his first coup. In 2014, he took to the streets his men to condemn the results of the legislative elections. Since sanctions from the United States and the United Nations Security Council, this time he announced that he was doing everything possible to prevent the presidential elections to be held on 24 December.
In a video released shortly before the Tripoli attack, he is seen threatening all those in power who are in favor of holding ballots. To them, the current leaders are “traitors, enemy agents and scum”. He threatened to shut down all state institutions that he said serve foreign countries more than they serve Libya.
He also condemned Stephanie Williams, special adviser to the UN Secretary-General, a US diplomat who, he says, remained silent in the face of the attack on Tripoli two years ago. Case, after an American green light. s. Williams was in Misrata on Wednesday, where she met with civil and military officials “who are in for a political solution” she wrote on Twitter.
This renewed tension in the Libyan capital could call into question the political and electoral calendar intended to normalize the situation in the country. Should we believe that the Libyan crisis, with international ramifications, is far from averted, despite commitments from both sides?