The UN envoy for Libya warned on Tuesday the battle for Tripoli was “just the start of a long and bloody war.” Addressing the UN Security Council, Ghassan Salame said many countries were supplying weapons to the UN-recognized government in Tripoli and forces led by Khalifa Haftar.
The violence on the outskirts of Tripoli is just the start of a long war on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, Salame said. The fighting could imperil “the security of Libya’s immediate neighbors and the wider Mediterranean region,” AFP quoted the envoy as saying.
Without immediate action to stop the flow of arms, “Libya will descend into civil war which could potentially lead to a Hobbesian all-against-all state of chaos or partition of the country,” he said.