Civilians have been trapped for months in a neighborhood of the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, amid fighting between the Libyan National Army (LNA) and Islamist militias that form the Benghazi Revolutionary Shura Council (BRSC). Human Rights Watch called for all sides to the conflict to allow all civilians to leave the Ganfouda district, and allow for the safe passage of humanitarian aid into the neighborhood. Ganfouda is one of the few remaining holdouts of militant Islamist groups in Benghazi. The LNA, which has Ganfouda under siege, has said it will not allow any evacuation of males between ages 15 and 65, and has set a series of other conditions. The Islamist coalition controlling the neighborhood has also set conditions for evacuation of civilians.

The latest fodder for "anti-war" propaganda—avidly jumped on, of course, by such predictable outlets as  the (reliably reactionary) Counterpunch and (poorly named) Global Research—is the report of the British parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee finding that the 2011 military intervention in Libya relied on flawed intelligence and hastened the country's political collapse. The report blasts the UK's then-Prime Minister David Cameron, stating that his government "could not verify the actual threat to civilians posed by the Gaddafi regime; it selectively took elements of Muammar Gaddafi's rhetoric at face value; and it failed to identify the militant Islamist extremist element in the rebellion." (Al Jazeera, Sept. 14)

We know we're going to be accused of alarmism, but please follow the logic. First, however self-serving it may be, the accusation of a Russian intelligence hand in the WikiLeaks dump of hacked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee is plausible. Famously, the e-mails reveal DNC staffers pulling for Hillary Clinton and against Bernie Sanders, prompting the resignation of the supposedly neutral body's chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The DNC had apparently been hit by Russian hackers, and Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook is now openly charging that Moscow is trying to boost Donald Trump.

The bodies of 14 civilians were found July 22 in a landfill in Benghazi's Lathi neighborhood, which is under the control of "Operation Dignity" forces, led by renegade Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar.  The victims included the imam from the local mosque, Abdullah al-Fakhri, a revered community figure and a father of three. The bodies showed signs of torture as well as gunshots to the head. The UN envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, denounced the executions, calling them a war crime. "Those responsible must be held accountable and brought to justice," he said. Operation Dignity forces are attempting to tighten their grip as the Benghazi Defense Brigades, a group of armed IDPs, announced a drive to take the city by force. (Libya Herald, Libya Observer, July 22)

At a summit in Vienna this week, world powers agreed to supply arms to Libya to fight ISIS, and to seek an exemption from the UN arms embargo on the country. But few media accounts are emphasizing that Libya now has three rival governments (not counting ISIS and various militia-controlled enclaves), and the "recognized" one is by far the weakest. Attending the summit was Fayez al-Sarraj, prime minister of the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). An official statement said: "The GNA is the sole legitimate recipient of international security assistance and is charged with preserving and protecting Libya's resources for the benefit of all its people." (Anadolu Agency, EuroNews) A sobering analysis in the Times of Oman, "Libyan quagmire to inevitably continue," calls the GNA "a 'Potemkin Village' lie of epic proportions," noting that it consists of a handful of men ensconced in a naval base outside Tripoli, controlling no territory and commanding no troops. The closest thing to an army it has is "an assortment of militias of varying shades of extremist" that have announced a tenuous recognition of its authority, mostly in Tripoli and Misrata.

Amid continued confused multi-factional warfare in Libya, Islamist militias on Feb. 23 reportedly lost two major areas in the contested eastern city of Benghazi. Fighters loyal to anti-Islamist Gen Khalifa Haftar are reported to have taken over the port, a hospital and have cut off a key weapons supply line. (BBC News) Meanwhile, Libya Dawn militia forces loyal to the rebel government that controls Tripoli were mobilized to the western town of Sabratha, after ISIS militants seized several key positions there, including the main hospital. (Libya Herald) In England, the defense spokesman for the hard-right UK Independence Party (UKIP) warned that Libya could be the "EU's Vietnam," citing a supposed leak of documents revealing plans to expand "Operation Sophia" to put European "boots on the ground" in the North African country. (UKIP, Feb. 18)

A MiG-23 fighter of Libya's internationally recognized government was shot down Feb. 12 as it carried out air-strikes in Benghazi, where the military is battling Islamist militias, some loyal to the rebel government that controls Tripoli. A military spokesman said the plane was bombing positions of the Mujahedeen Shura Council. But in an online statement, ISIS claimed its fighters downed the plane, according to SITE Intelligence Group. The pilot is believed to have survived, having parachuted to safety, although his whereabouts are unknown. This was apparently the second downing of a Libyan warplane that week. Four days earlier, another regime MiG-23 crashed near the eastern city of Derna after attacking ISIS positions—although the official LANA news agency blamed "technical problems." In early January, another government MiG 23 came down in Benghazi. (AFP, Feb. 13)

Unidentified warplanes or drones bombed Libya's eastern city of Derna Feb. 7, reportedly hitting Shura Council locations. Shura Council sources confirmed to local media that two of their fighters were killed. A woman and her child were also among dead—by some accounts, killed in a strike on a hospital in the city. A wing of the city's al-Wehda hospital was said to be "completely destroyed." The Shura Council is aligned with the Islamist-led Libya Dawn coalition that controls most of Libya's west, and has been battling ISIS forces for control of the city.  (Libya Observer, Reuters, AFP, Feb. 7) Derna is an Islamist-controlled enclave in eastern Libya, which is mostly controlled by the more secularist "official" government. The "official" government last month rejected a UN-brokered deal to unite the two rival regimes—both of which are now threatend by the growing ISIS presence in the country.