Libya mulls declaring state of emergency

Libya's ensuing post-war crisis may see Abdel Rahim Al Keeb's government increasingly tempted to declare a state of emergency, according to the French specialist political and business affairs publication Africa Intelligence.

According to chief editor Gaelle Arenson, hotbeds of unrest in Libya are increasing by the day throughout the country.

"There's now a real risk that a widespread conflict could erupt," Arenson writes in the Paris-based specialist magazine.

"Declaring a state of emergency and imposing a curfew would make life harder for militias which are operating in ever more autonomous fashion. It could equally give the transitional administration time to bolster its positions and, above all, to speed up the formation of a new army."

Africa Intelligence also comments on the inability of the EU to bolster its support of the fledgling Libyan government. "Privately, officials at the European Commission admit errors in handling the post-Gaddafi period."

Africa Intelligence says the NTC's former prime minister Mahmoud Jibril failed to obtain concrete help from the EU's foreign representative Catherine Ashton when he was in Brussels on 24 March; and that NATO secretary-general Anders Rasmussen keeps repeating that NATO's role in Libya is over.

The new Libyan military has 8,055 former fighters now enrolled by the defence ministry, who are currently entrusted with the safeguarding of borders and key oil sites.

The crisis in Libya has seen Berbers in the city of Zwara under the command of Abdelaziz Abousnougha, in open conflict with militias in the nearby towns of Regdaline and Jmil, who are reputedly "pro-Gaddafi". Berbers from both Zwara and Nalut are determined to see that they alone control the region lying next to Tunisia, with its lucrative traffic in gasoline and food.

In an attempt to come to grips with the situation the interior ministry has sent a 200-strong force to the area, where a major gathering is planned for 17 April at Djebel Lakhdar east of Benghazi.

Last week, six days of tribal clashes in the remote desert town of Sabha, in southern Libya, left 147 dead, and 395 wounded.

The clashes in the oasis region some 400 miles south of Tripoli show the fragile authority of the Libyan government, particularly in the isolated settlements that dot the southern desert.

Libya's ruling National Transitional Council still relies on militias comprised of former rebels to keep the peace, as the embers of the Gaddafi regime has left behind local rivalries between Libyan Arab tribes that have connections to Gaddafi.

Last week, the rivalry turned into an open conflict when a Tabu tribe member shot a member of the Arab Abu Seif tribe. Then a delegation of Tabu elders and armed men going to participate in reconciliation talks was ambushed.

The Tabu and Arab tribes fought in another oasis region, Kufra, in February, exchanging fire with automatic rifles, mortars, and rockets.