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The Compass: Libya's Revolution: The rule of the gun

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Libya's Revolution

08/09/2021 GMT

The rule of the gun

BBC World Service - The Compass, Libya's Revolution, The rule of the gun

Why did plans to integrate Libya's militias into a unified national army come to nothing?

BBC reporter Tim Whewell, who covered the 2011 uprising, returns to the country to ask why plans to integrate the militias into a unified national army came to nothing. He talks to past and present militiamen - including the young man Wadah al-Keesh, who later left his group in disgust - and Mohammed al-Durat, truck-driver turned police commander, who has reunited with a band of friends to fight in every major battle over the last ten years - and believes he will in future too. Tim talks to revolutionary politician Abdul-Rahman al-Suwayhli and famous brigade commander Salah Badi about the lead-up to civil war - and hears too about its human cost from a young woman, Rasha Akhdar, who lost her father in fighting around Tripoli. Back in Britain, he learns the inside story of the UK's failed attempt to train a new Libyan fighting force from senior military officer Hugh Blackman - and asks former foreign secretary William Hague whether foreign powers could have adopted different policies to help stabilise Libya.

The Compass: Libya's Revolution

Why is the revolution that overthrew Libya's Col Gaddafi still unfinished, 10 years on?

How the dreams of Libya's 2011 revolutionaries turned sour. Was the overthrow of Col Gaddafi worth it?

Image: The new Libyan flag is raised during a parade in the eastern city of Benghazi to celebrate the second anniversary of Nato's first military operation in Libya on March 19, 2013 (Credit: Abdullah Doma/AFP via Getty Images)

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