Libya’s Warlord Family Is Burning the State to Fund Its Own Army |
When 25,000 soldiers massed last week at Ras al-Aliba in northeastern Libya for “Shield of Dignity 2,” the largest military exercise in the history of the self-styled Libyan National Army, the choreography was unmistakable. Khalid Haftar inspected infantry and tank formations from the ground. His brother Saddam surveyed the exercise from the air. Russian-supplied BTR-82A armored vehicles rolled across the terrain. Helicopter units demonstrated their reach. The message was calibrated for multiple audiences simultaneously: internal subordinates, rival factions in Tripoli, and the Arab and international diplomats invited to watch.
What the spectacle could not conceal, however, was disclosed the day before the exercises began, when the head of Libya’s Administrative Control Authority revealed that Libyan governments have spent over one trillion dinars since 2011. The figure prompted one Libyan economist to note that 87 percent of those funds went toward consumption rather than any form of productive development. The salary bill for government workers alone reached 73 billion dinars last year, supporting a bloated public workforce of approximately 2.6 million in a country of under seven million people. Public debt has surpassed 270 billion dinars and is expected to climb further before the end of 2026.
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