Libya's east ups the ante

Haftar's recapture of the oil crescent and the GNA's disintegration have prompted renewed efforts by Tobruk to sell its own oil

The guns had not yet fallen silent on an 11-day battle for Libya's key oil ports in mid-March when a new front opened in the country's civil war, with eastern Libya declaring separate control of its oil assets. The fighting began on 3 March when the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB), Islamist militias originally from that city, seized Es-Sider, Libya's largest export terminal, and Ras Lanuf, its third largest. The BDB is aligned with Libya Dawn, an Islamist and Misratan militia coalition, which is at war with a rival coalition, Operation Dignity. Dignity contains most of the rest of Libya's tribes along with the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by eastern general Khalifa Haftar, the country's m