In 2015, the armed coalitions supporting Libya's rival governments were embroiled in a brutal civil war in Tripoli and in the Oil Crescent, home of the country's most important oil export infrastructure. Neither side had the strength to overpower the other. Militias from Misrata, a wealthy port city with a long history of revolutionary movements dating to Libya's colonial period under the Italian Empire, forced rival fighters, including a group from the city of Zintan, out of Tripoli. At the same time, Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter and his Libyan National Army managed to push Misratan forces from both the Oil Crescent and the city of Sirte.
But in the vacuum left after fighting stopped in Libya in 2015, the Islamic State established a base around Sirte, and from there, it launched attacks westward into Misrata. Alarmed by the extremist group's advance, the city's warring militias and their leaders began to look for a political solution to their dispute so they could turn their attention toward the Islamic State — and get Western support for the fight. The Islamic State's emergence in Libya created rifts between Misrata's moderate factions and their hard-line Islamist and Salafist allies. Nevertheless, the moderates eventually signed a peace agreement with the city of Zintan and joined negotiations to form a unified government. With an enduring cease-fire between the Misratan and Zintan militias, a collection of these militias, al-Bunyan al-Marsous, would lead the charge against the Islamic State in Sirte.
But now that fight has brought the Misratans dangerously close to their former foe: Hifter. Now that Sirte has been reclaimed, the front lines of Libya's civil war are more or less the same as when the Islamic State's invasion drove the opposing sides to their tenuous reconciliation. The difference is that today, Islamic State forces are no longer a buffer between the Misratan militias and Hifter's army.
So far, however, neither side has given any indication that it intends to attack the other. Misrata's forces in Sirte refrained from joining the assault on the Jufra oil terminals held by the Libyan National Army. What's more, Misrata militias' formal reconciliation with Zintan, an ally of the Libyan National Army, suggests that the Misratans are open to negotiating with Hifter's forces. Hifter, meanwhile, has his sights set on Tripoli. For now, it is unclear just how a future government would accommodate the ambitions of both Hifter and the Misratans. Still, there may be room for a collaboration, albeit a fragile one.
