Libya’s Interior Minister Announces Departure of Armed Groups from Tripoli

Libya’s Interior Minister, Imad Trabelsi, has announced that armed groups controlling Tripoli’s capital for over a decade will leave.

The Libyan government will use the militias only in exceptional circumstances for specific missions. Once they leave Tripoli, other cities will follow, and checkpoints and armed groups will no longer be on roads.

This deal will see at least five armed groups quit Tripoli by the end of Ramadan on 9 April, including one based in an area where 10 people were killed over the weekend. The militias are the General Security Force, Special Deterrence Force, Brigade 444, Brigade 111, and the Stability Support Authority. They are not under direct command of the Libyan government, but their operational independence was granted by a special status conveyed on them in 2021.

Emergency police, city officers, and criminal investigators will replace them. Policing Libya has become more challenging since a NATO-backed uprising and an operation that plunged the nation into chaos in 2011.