'A big pact': How the US plans to unite Libya through two ruling families

The power-sharing agreement seeks to unify Libya through the Dbeibeh family in western Libya and the Haftar family in the east, while replacing each family’s leaders with a new generation. While the effort has been underway for some time, it has gained new focus as the war on Iran sends oil prices higher, drawing US energy companies back to the country with Africa’s largest proven oil reserves. Libya’s ruling families are experiencing a windfall as Brent crude rises. The National Oil Corporation said its revenue hit 2.9bn in April, a threefold increase from the beginning of this year. The Libyan oil minister visited Washington last week. “This has been in the making for several months,” Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa director at the International Crisis Group, told MEE. “The US is trying to prepare the ground for this big pact between the two families.” “There is a lot of money to be made upstream from more oil exploration, Fabiani added. “The Americans have a huge interest in all of this - especially now with the war in Iran.” Replacing Libya's prime minister Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s Africa envoy, is leading the push. While the diplomatic deal has been noted in public and is opposed by many Libyans, it has flown below the radar in the West as the US-Israeli war on Iran draws the most attention in the region. The Trump administration wants Ibrahim Dbeibah, a Libyan powerbroker, to take over as prime minister in place of his cousin, the country’s current premier, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who is suffering from health issues. Boulos pushed for the shakeup alongside Turkey as recently as April during the Antalya Forum, which was attended by a Libyan delegation, an Arab source familiar with the matter and a former senior western official told MEE. Pakistan delivers weapons to Libya's Haftar as part of Saudi-financed deal, sources say Read More » Ibrahim has forged a particularly close relationship with Boulos, with whom he has discussed unlocking billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets in private, MEE previously revealed. The New York Times confirmed the report. On the opposite side, Saddam Haftar, the 35-year-old son of General Khalifa Haftar, who controls Eastern Libya, would be named president of the North African country. Ibrahim and Saddam held meetings at the Élysée Palace in Paris earlier this year as part of Boulos’s efforts. Saddam is the deputy commander of Khalifa’s Libyan National Army. He has diversified the Haftar family’s relations with former foes, such as Turkey, and is emerging as the US’s preferred candidate to replace his 82-year-old father. Saddam also met the deputy director of the CIA during a visit to Washington last year, the Arab source told MEE. This is not the first effort to unify Libya. 'Carve up the goodies' Libya descended into civil war in 2011 after a Nato-backed uprising overthrew long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi. For more than a decade, the country has been divided into two, with an internationally recognised government in Tripoli and a government in the east led by Khalifa. The two sides fought a bloody war in 2019, during which Khalifa tried to conquer Tripoli. The fighting devolved into a proxy battle with Turkey backing the United Nations-recognised government, and Russia, Egypt, and the UAE supporting Khalifa. Abdul Hamid of the Dbeibeh family was appointed prime minister in 2021 as part of a UN-led bid to guide the country through democratic elections. Exclusive: Greece to lobby Egypt against Haftar endorsing Turkey-Libya maritime deal Read More » “All of the outside powers, including the US, have basically given up on democratic elections in Libya,” a former senior western official told MEE. “Their preference is to work with the entrenched families and carve up the goodies among the two most corrupt.” “But the Haftar’s are toxic in western Libya, and Dbeibeh doesn’t fully control the West. This totally bypasses the Libyan people and could backfire,” the former official said. The Dbeibeh family has courted powerful militias in western Libya but is opposed by other groups. Any effort to share power with the Saddam of the Haftar family is unlikely to sit well in Misrata, the Mediterranean coastal city home to a dynamic class of business families. Sadiq al-Ghariani, the grand mufti of Libya, came out against any power-sharing deal between the two sides late last month. While the Haftars have a tighter grip on eastern Libya, the family itself is divided. Saddam is consolidating control of the military, but is locked in rivalry with his brothers, particularly Belqasim, who runs the Fund for development and reconstruction in Benghazi. “Neither the Dbeibeh family nor the Haftar family are a cohesive unit now,” Jalal Harchaiou, a Libya expert with the Royal United Services Institute, told MEE. “This could actually make a change possible. The status quo is not sustainable, and if a new government is announced, it would be the beginning of a new process,” he said. Can Libya replace Gulf oil? A former US official familiar with Libya told MEE that the Trump administration is effectively carrying on with a gradual push to mend fences between the ruling families of Libya that the Biden administration pursued, although its willingness to toy with unlocking billions of dollars in frozen assets and cut business deals has greased the wheels of diplomacy. “This is not just a Boulos push; it is a whole-of-government initiative with the intention to make Libya accessible to US oil companies and create opportunities for Libyans,” the former official said. “Let’s face it, the UN election process did not work.” Egypt and Saudi Arabia pressure Libya’s Haftar to stop UAE supplies to Sudan’s RSF Read More » There have been some tactical victories. The Central Bank of Libya announced the country’s first unified budget in more than a decade in early April. In a move that surprised some long-term Libya watchers, eastern and western Libyan forces trained together in Sirte as part of the US-led Flintlock military exercises last month. US energy companies were scouting out opportunities in Libya before the war on Iran. Chevron won an exploration licence for Libya’s Sirte basin in February, and Exxon Mobil signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Oil Corporation to re-enter Libya in August 2025. Libya’s National Oil Corporation said its oil exports hit 1.2 million barrels per day in April, which is described as a 10-year high. But some analysts are sceptical of how Libya has framed those numbers and say the war in Iran has not materially changed the investment landscape. Most of Libya’s oil infrastructure is half a century old, and statistics in the country are murky, given the opacity of its government. Jason Pack, the founder of Libya-Analysis and author of Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder, told MEE that the US and its allies would be disappointed if they think Libya can replace volumes lost from the Gulf. “The inability of Libyans to produce more oil has to do with their own internal incompetence, not the amount of US or external support, or lack thereof,” Pack told MEE. “The idea that Libya can deliver globally meaningful quantities of oil in the short duration of the Iran war is laughable.” Pack said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked a similar conversation about Libya’s potential to supplant Russia as a gas provider to Europe. “At the start of the war in Ukraine, people were saying that Libya would be the new Algeria, but the Libyans failed to achieve it, and they will fail to achieve this,” he said. Turkey's support But the idea of Libya’s two prominent families moving closer to sharing the country's current energy spoils under US auspices is a more achievable goal, experts say. One of the main reasons is that the external powers, which once turned Libya into a proxy conflict, have diversified their ties. Saddam is courting Turkey and has started to receive some weapons from Pakistan under Saudi Arabia’s auspices, MEE previously revealed. Meanwhile, Egypt, which once opposed the government in Tripoli, has bolstered its ties with the government and is mending fences with Ankara, its old foe in Libya. “Turks and Egyptians are willing for the two sides work together because the political context is so different than the past,” Pack said. “This has nothing to do with Trump.” Harchaoui said the US had Turkey's support, which is one of the most powerful actors on the ground in Libya. “There are some indications that Turkey is probably happy with whatever big announcement is in the pipeline. That matters,” he said. “I think the Saudis will support what Turkey agrees with, because of Sudan.” The US may also see an opportunity to drive a wedge between the Haftar family and Russia, which has deployed mercenaries in eastern Libya and previously sought port access in the country. A Russian-backed government in neighbouring Mali is on the verge of collapse from al-Qaeda linked militants. “It’s not just the money drawing the US deep state to Libya. Russia is on the retreat in Mali, and it's not crazy to think something could happen to them in Libya too,” Harchaoui added. Inside Libya News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0