Libya has become a battleground between foreign countries, two of which are key axes of the Middle East against each other. For this reason Libya has become an interest for Western powers and especially for Israel.
To understand this, it is necessary to observe who supports those in Libya.
Haftar and its LNA have benefited from the 2014 support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. The UAE, according to regional media reports, carried out air strikes and used drones to support the LNA. The provision of Egyptian funds, arms and equipment and Emirates was central to Haftar's efforts.
In the run-up to the launch of his offensive, Haftar appears to have gained the support of Saudi Arabia. The Libyan general met with King Salman on March 27 in the al-Yamamah palace in Riyadh. During his visit he also met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This means that Haftar has added Ryad to his list of supporters.
Haftar is therefore the ally and client of those Arab states, notoriously authoritarian and aligned with the West that find a common enemy in Sunni political Islam of the anti-Western Muslim Brotherhood and its allies.
On the other hand, Turkey and Qatar (and the deposed Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir) strongly support the elements associated with Islamists and Muslims who share power with the Tripoli government. Evidence of illegal arms shipments by Turkey to Tripoli forces has emerged.
On December 18 2018, the authorities seized a shipment of 3.000 guns produced in Turkey in Khoms, a port east of Tripoli. Four million bullets were discovered on a Turkish cargo ship in Libya a short time later. Another batch of weapons from Turkey was discovered at Misrata on January 7.
Qatar's support, meanwhile, is being offered to Islamist militias and powerful individuals associated with the jihadist trend, particularly the Benghazi Defense Brigades, formed in direct response to Haftar's activities in 2014 and which bring together a number of jihadist militias. Doha also offers support to Ali Salabi, an influential preacher and member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Abdel Hakim Belhaj, president of Libya's al-Watan party and former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
The forces deployed against Haftar are therefore representative of the axis Sunni Islamic. Ankara and Doha seek to expand and deepen their regional influence through support for Sunni Islamist political and military organizations. This pattern has also been observed in Syria, the Palestinian territories and Iraq.
It is worth noting that Haftar and LNA are currently in the unusual position of enjoying the tacit support of both Russia and the United States. Moscow is in favor of Haftar's capture of eastern Libya's oil resources and his fight against Sunni Muslims. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, spoke to Haftar by phone on April 15, and according to the White House "recognized the role of Field Marshal Haftar in fighting terrorism and securing Libya's oil resources." This move contradicted an April 7 statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressing opposition to the Haftar offensive and calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Subsequently, the United States and Russia prevented the presentation of a formal request for a ceasefire to the UN Security Council, requested by England and supported by Italy.
The outcome of the contest in Libya is far from certain. Haftar's LNA, despite its name and professional background, is not just a regular military force. Rather, it incorporates a number of militias of questionable skill and provenance.
Although the general's forces will eventually succeed in conquering Tripoli, it is likely that the widespread opposition to his government, including the armed variety, remains in the west of the country. Much of the vast desert south of Libya, meanwhile, remains lawless, out of control of one of the competing governments and has therefore become an arena for the continued activities of the organization of the Islamic state.
Thus the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia hope that Haftar and the LNA will be able to establish centralized control in the coming months for a largely aligned, authoritarian and Western regime. The United States and France also seem to support this result.
Even Israel's position in the regional context between authoritarianism aligned with the West and Sunni political Islam is not ambiguous. It is likely that what is good for Sisi and evil for the Muslim Brotherhood and Erdoğan are welcome in Jerusalem.
Libya could continue to share the fate of Syria, Yemen and, to a lesser extent, Iraq, after the destruction or weakening of powerful centralized regimes in those countries: the ongoing fragmentation, chaos and war .