As the nation still suffers the aftershocks from last year’s civil war, the battle lines for the next Libyan Civil War are starting to take shape today, with the announcement that some 100 militias in Western Libya are forming a new federation to demand reforms.
The federation’s leader, Col. Mokhtar Fernana, was quick to lash out against the NATO-backed National Transitional Council (NTC), nominally the ruling government of Libya, saying it was “an attempt to hijack the revolution.”
The NTC’s leadership was mostly based in Eastern Libya, and trying to become a “nationwide” movement after the civil war absorbed a lot of Gadhafi regime bureaucrats, while cutting most of the Western militias out of government entirely.
Ibrahim al-Madani, one of the militia commanders who joined the federation, insisted the group will not lay down its weapons for the NTC, adding that the civil war was not “against Gadhafi but against a corrupt regime” and that they needed to be convinced the NTC was better.
