World
Diplomatic failings and ‘elite bargains’ prolonging Libya turmoil: Analysts
After weeks of tension that saw the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) shuttered, salaries go unpaid and cash vanish, the country’s two rival governments appeared ready to accept a United Nations-brokered agreement to resume operations, before once more reverting to a deadlock familiar to many in the country.
The internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in the west had tried to replace CBL Governor Sadiq al-Kabir, accusing him of mishandling oil revenues and going to the extent of sending armed men in to remove him from his office.
Angered, the Government of National Unity (GNU) in eastern Libya, which is supported by renegade commander Khalifa Haftar, shut down much of the country’s oil production, which it controls, in protest.
“This is serious,” said Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow with London’s Royal United Services Institute. “The CBL, although weaker now than it was a few years ago, remains a linchpin to the nation’s access to hard currency.”
He added that the CBL funds most of Libya’s imports of food, medicines and other staples, which the country cannot last long without.
The clash is the latest battleground in the 13-year rivalry between political and military elites that has dogged Libya since the overthrow of long-term ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Since then, various analysts say, life in Libya has deteriorated as fighting has continued between rival Libyans and as the international community has tried to preserve the rule of a political and military elite, convinced they are the best for stability and for the proclaimed goal of “unifying Libya”.
Why the central bank?
As well as holding Libya’s vast oil wealth, the CBL unified Libya’s eastern and western “central banks” in one body to manage the salaries of civil servants and soldiers from both governments and build confidence that recovery was possible.
After the GNA-GNU struggle over who would head the CBL, al-Kabir fled the country, claiming that he took the access codes for bank deposits with him, leaving the bank isolated from international financial networks.
Asim al-Hajjaji, director of the CBL compliance department, said international contacts had been restored, although Al Jazeera understands that most international trading remains suspended.
Meanwhile, oil exports have plunged to a new low, salaries are uncertain and everyday life for about six million Libyans is in turmoil.
“The United Nations is talking about talks, which is a sure sign we’re nowhere near resolution,” Tarek Megerisi, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said of negotiations to restart operations at CBL.
The West, which typically backs the GNA despite it being responsible for much of the uncertainty, “doesn’t know what to do, or really has the bandwidth to do it. They’re dealing with wars in Gaza and Ukraine,” he said.
“It’s just too much. In Libya, international efforts to achieve any kind of just settlement have lost momentum.”
And this is far from the first time.
Over more than a decade of uncertainty and war, analysts say, the international community’s efforts focused on shoring up the country’s elites in the hope that might lead to stability.
The latest talks over the CBL appear little different, with access to the millions of dollars in assets of primary interest to the country’s elites, and access to the services and certainty craved by much of the population seemingly an afterthought, analysts told Al Jazeera.
Elite bargains presiding over endless turmoil
“Preventing a shooting war has come to be seen as the only international strategy in Libya,” Tim Eaton, a senior fellow at Chatham House who contributed to a paper on the international practice of prioritising powerful elites, told Al Jazeera.
“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” Harchaoui said.
“Everyone’s talking about a return to the status quo as if there were ever a neat, static equilibrium,” he noted. “This was never the case. Even when things appeared quiet, the arrangements were continually decaying and degrading. And that gradual deterioration is what suddenly became visible last month with the CBL crisis.”
National elections, or even a framework that might lead to them, remain a distant prospect after the last vote, initially scheduled for December 2021, was postponed after infighting.
“Any move towards holding national elections has been blocked,” Eaton said. “Both [Abdul Hamid] Dbeibah [head of the GNA] and Haftar might say they want elections tomorrow, but they only really want their side, or at least their proxies, on the ballot paper.”
Both governments continue to rule separately, while their members, allies and militias profit from smuggling in both people and fuel and unregulated cross-border trade.
However, as individual members jockey for position within small and exclusive circles, systems intended to support everyday life in Libya continue to deteriorate and fail.
Eaton notes that the city of Derna, which flooded in September 2023 after a dam that the GNU was responsible for collapsed, remains unreconstructed.
“For healthcare, Libyans have to go overseas,” he noted. “And if anyone is ever caught in an emergency, there’s no one number or department they can call.
“All the while, the super-rich that are supposed to be looking after people, are getting even richer.”
Both sides, he explained, claim to work towards establishing a central government while state institutions needed to oversee any future state, like a strong central bank, have been hollowed out and captured by elites on either side.
Regionally, over its 13 years of sporadic conflict and political uncertainty, Libya has become a continued source of instability within an already unstable region.
Within a divided Libya, various actors have come to use the country’s east as a staging point from which to project their own international ambitions in Sudan, Syria and beyond.
Overwhelming human cost
In addition to the uncertainty piled on the Libyan population are the more than 1,000 refugees, irregular migrants and asylum seekers who have died or gone missing on the Central Mediterranean migration route, in which Libya is a key part, this year.
“The West and UN in Libya are performing diplomatic theatre while the country crumbles,” Anas El Gomati of the Sadeq Institute said.
“They have a toolbox of leverage gathering dust. Instead of applying pressure, they’re enabling corruption by legitimising those without electoral mandate or political credibility. That’s not diplomacy; that’s complicity in slow motion.”
El Gomati continued: “East or west, Libya’s compass points to chaos and corruption. Haftar and his kids carve out a fiefdom through war crimes in the east, while Dbeibah runs a ‘pay-as-you-go’ loyalty scheme with armed groups in the west.
“The irony? The elites don’t trust the very banking system they’ve bled dry, so they keep their assets overseas, which the West could freeze, but they’re too busy shaking hands with the very hands pickpocketing Libya’s future.
“Western policymakers and Libyan elites are locked in a race to the bottom of delusion and greed,” El Gomati concluded. “The West sees a finish line; the elites see an endless buffet. It’s not naivete, it’s willful blindness, and the Libyan people are paying for it. In the Libyan elite’s casino, the house always wins, and corruption is the chip that never runs out.”
World
War breaking news. Israel: two senior Hamas figures hit in northern Gaza. Iran, Trump: ‘No one will control the Strait of Hormuz’
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the Pasdaran, claim that 25 ships have crossed the Strait of Hormuz in the last 24 hours
World
US ally pledges support for Trump’s push to break Iran’s grip on Hormuz: ‘We are ready to contribute’
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UNITED NATIONS — The Czech Republic is prepared to help protect freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and is aligning closely with the Trump administration on security, NATO and Israel, Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka told Fox News Digital during an exclusive interview at the United Nations in New York.
Prague already had begun discussions about contributing specialized capabilities to help secure the strategically vital waterway amid growing tensions with Iran, Macinka said while speaking at Security Council-related meetings at the U.N.
“We are ready to contribute to freedom of passage and the Hormuz trade,” Macinka said.
“We were among the first countries that were ready to contribute … We have no navy, as we are in the middle of Europe,” he explained, “But we have some unique passive surveillance capabilities.”
TRUMP SEEKS WARSHIPS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES TO HELP SECURE STRAIT OF HORMUZ
Czech Republic Foreign Minister Petr Macinka arrives at the 135th Session of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe at the Palace of the Republic in Chisinau, Moldova, May 15, 2026. (Vladislav Culiomza/Reuters)
Macinka warned that Iran posed a global threat through what he described as four main “war tools”: nuclear proliferation, drones and ballistic missiles, international terrorism and threats to the Strait of Hormuz.
“Their nuclear military program must be stopped,” he said. “It’s a global risk and global threat.”
The comments come as the Trump administration has increased pressure on European allies to take a larger role in protecting international shipping routes amid Iranian threats tied to the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most critical oil transit choke points. Roughly one-fifth of global oil consumption passes through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea.
Speaking after a meeting with foreign ministers in Sweden Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio questioned the value of hosting U.S. military bases in allied countries that later restrict American military operations during wartime.
“One of the arguments I always made was that these bases in the region provided us with logistical options that we wouldn’t otherwise have,” Rubio told reporters. “And when some of those bases are denied to you during a conflict that we’re involved in, then you question whether that value is still there.”
President Donald Trump also has sharply criticized NATO allies over a reluctance to participate in military operations tied to the Iran conflict and securing the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said he was “strongly considering” pulling the United States out of NATO after allies failed to join the U.S. campaign against Iran, according to an April 1 interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph, calling the alliance a “paper tiger.”
Vessels of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps are seen during a ceremony marking the National Persian Gulf Day at the Persian Gulf near Bushehr, Iran, April 29, 2024. The National Persian Gulf Day marks the anniversary of the expulsion of Portuguese military forces from the Strait of Hormuz in 1622. (Shadati/Xinhua via Getty Images)
The Czech Republic, a NATO member since 1999, reached NATO’s benchmark of spending 2% of GDP on defense and has supported calls for Europe to increase military readiness amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Macinka strongly defended the administration’s calls for Europe to increase defense spending and reduce dependence on Washington for long-term security guarantees.
“We should do our homework and build our defense to become stronger,” he said, arguing that Europe had delayed necessary military investments for too long.
He also tied Europe’s defense spending challenges to the European Union’s Green Deal policies, the bloc’s sweeping climate agenda aimed at reducing carbon emissions, calling them ideological and financially destructive.
“If we get rid of this green, crazy alarmism, then we have enough money to build our defense,” he said.
The Czech foreign minister also voiced unusually direct support for Trump and his administration, praising what he described as a global “common sense” shift following Trump’s election victory.
“We are friends of Israel, and we are friends of America,” Macinka said. “Especially me as a politician, I’m a friend of the ideology of the current American administration.”
Macinka also referenced a clash earlier in 2026 with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Munich Security Conference, where he criticized Europe’s liberal political establishment and defended the populist wave reshaping parts of Europe and the United States.
EUROPE MUST LEAD ON UKRAINIAN SECURITY GUARANTEES, GREEK FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS: ‘WE ARE THE NEIGHBORS’
A tanker sits at the Port of Fujairah, as the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran limits marine traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. (REUTERS / Amr Alfiky / File Photo)
Macinka linked Prague’s strong support for Ukraine to the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, when hundreds of thousands of Warsaw Pact troops occupied the country for more than two decades.
He said that historical experience continues to shape Czech public opinion and support for Kyiv.
“The Czech society feels a big solidarity with Ukraine,” Macinka said, describing the war as a “symmetric war” between a powerful Russian military and a Ukrainian army backed by the West.
Macinka highlighted Prague’s leading role in a Czech-backed ammunition initiative supplying Ukraine with artillery rounds collected through international donor efforts.
Recalling a visit to Kyiv earlier in 2026, he said he received intelligence briefings on battlefield ammunition consumption from Ukrainian military officials.
TRUMP, ZELENSKYY TO MEET FOR KEY DEAL AS NATO ALLIES, RUSSIA WAIT, WATCH
Naval units from Iran and Russia simulate the rescue of a hijacked vessel during joint drills at the Port of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan, Iran, on Feb. 19, 2026. (Iranian Army/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Czech initiative delivered more than half a million rounds of ammunition in 2026 alone, according to Macinka, helping stabilize the battlefield ahead of possible peace negotiations.
Macinka argued that maintaining a stable front is essential for meaningful negotiations, warning that shifting battle lines will only harden demands on both sides.
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Newly recruited soldiers of Ukraine’s 159th Separate Mechanized Brigade participate in integration and advanced training exercises in Kharkiv Oblast on May 14, 2026, after completing basic military training. (Yevhen Titov/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
With Washington increasingly focused on the Middle East, Macinka also said Europe must begin taking a larger diplomatic role in future negotiations over Ukraine.
“America is quite busy with the Middle East,” he said. “Europe should wake up and ask for a place at the table.”
The seven Lao nationals had entered the cave in Xaisomboun province last week before heavy rain and a landslide blocked their exit.
Published On 27 May 2026
Rescue teams have recovered five of seven villagers who had been trapped for more than a week in a flooded cave in central Laos.
The quintet was found alive on Wednesday. Lao and Thai teams said that they were continuing the search for two others who remain missing.
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“We’ve found 5 people alive and all safe. There are still 2 people we are searching for,” a Laotian volunteer rescue group said in a social media post.
“At 4:30 pm [09:30 GMT], we found our target. We found five people. We are looking for the other two,” added Thai rescuer Kengkach Bangkawong in a separate post.
Thai volunteer rescuer Chakrakrit Taengtung posted a video on social media showing him and the five rescued villagers all cheering.
The video suggested that they were in good health and good spirits as they raised their arms in the air and smiled.
The seven Lao nationals entered the cave in Xaisomboun province last week. Shortly afterwards, heavy rain and a landslide blocked their exit, according to a local volunteer group and state-run Lao Phattana News.
A Thai volunteer group joined the rescue operation on Sunday. The team included a diver who took part in the 2018 rescue of 12 boys and their football coach from a flooded cave in northern Thailand, an operation that drew global attention and involved divers from across the globe.
Videos shared online showed that reaching the cave’s entrance required a steep hike of roughly 4 kilometres (2.5 miles). The entrance is also steep and rocky, and barely wide enough for a single person to climb through.
There has been no official confirmation on why the villagers went into the cave. However, rescuer Bounkham Luanglath, from the Lao organisation Rescue Volunteer for People, said the cave was frequented by local residents looking for gold, even though authorities had repeatedly warned of safety concerns.
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