Zawiya in the crosshairs: Could a government intervention ignite a wider Libyan war?

LIBYA

Drone attacks on Zawiya’s strategic oil complex could prompt Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah to move against the city’s militias – risking strikes on Tripoli, oilfields, pipelines and the power grid.

DRONE attacks on Libya’s largest operating refinery have raised the prospect of a government intervention that analysts warn could ignite a far wider Libyan conflict.

Successive strikes on the Zawiya oil complex, 45 kilometres west of Tripoli, set fuel tanks ablaze.

One containing 4.5 million litres of petrol collapsed. Although the refinery escaped serious damage, the National Oil Corporation (NOC) warned that further attacks could force it to declare force majeure and halt operations.

The violence did not stop there.

A subsequent attack destroyed part of the South Zawiya electricity substation, removing more than 700 megawatts of generating capacity and causing widespread outages. GE suspended work at the power plant and withdrew its teams.

No group has claimed responsibility or produced evidence identifying the perpetrators.

Jalel Harchaoui, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, says accepting that uncertainty helps explain what may happen next.

“Fundamentally, we’re not going to get any evidence. We don’t know who did it, and we should accept that,” he says.

Sibylline Middle East and Africa Analyst Omar Khadr agrees that the motive is as obscure as the identity of those responsible.

But he cautions against treating the strikes as isolated incidents.

“These are systemic attacks, not sporadic, one-off ones,” he says, placing them within two years of worsening militia violence.

Zawiya’s armed groups are nominally affiliated with Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah’s Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU).

In practice, however, each pursues its own interests, supported by overlapping tribal, clan and family networks.

“Each militia has its own agenda and its own sphere of influence,” says Khadr. “These agendas are often contradictory and often work against each other.”

The attacks demonstrate how that competition is being transformed by cheap technology.

Harchaoui says the weapon used was a Chinese first-person-view drone that can be bought for less than $6,000. Such systems are increasingly accessible to Libyan armed groups and can evade conventional electronic countermeasures.

He says unsuccessful attempts were made against the complex before the 10 August strike finally found its target.

Khadr says reports of Chinese FPV drones circulating in Libya date back to at least November 2025. Their low cost and ability to bypass jamming make protecting large facilities difficult.

“FPV drones are a nightmare globally,” he says. “With the weak capabilities of the Libyan government, it is virtually impossible to intercept these drones.”

Yet Zawiya is more than the site of a refinery. Its energy complex contains fuel tanks, the coastal end of the pipeline from the Sharara oilfield, and a terminal exporting crude and importing fuel.

The refinery can process 120,000 barrels per day, while Sharara can produce around 300,000. Alongside them sits a power station supplying much of western Libya.

The city also controls the coastal road connecting Tripoli with Tunisia and lies close to the Ras Ajdir border crossing. Those assets make Zawiya strategically important to the Tripoli government.

Dbeibah has condemned the attacks as an organised crime and promised that those responsible will face consequences.

Harchaoui believes the gravity of his language points towards something more ambitious than reinforcing security around the oil complex.

He says the government may be preparing an operation intended to “pacify the entire city” and establish territorial control over an area that has largely escaped Tripoli’s authority.

Khadr also considers a large-scale operation a serious possibility.

An earlier government security operation in May triggered heavy clashes and forced the refinery to close temporarily after shells struck the complex.

The UN warned then that violence in Zawiya risked wider destabilisation and severe damage to strategic infrastructure.

A new intervention would therefore enter a city of around 250,000 people whose factions possess heavy weapons, hardened fighters and a long history of resistance.

Harchaoui believes Zawiya’s competing factions would close ranks against an outside force, as they did when Khalifa Haftar attempted to advance through the area during his 2019 offensive against Tripoli.

Khadr is less certain, arguing that many of Zawiya’s armed groups are driven more by money and influence than ideology. They compete over smuggling routes and fuel revenues, while some extort payments from local businesses.

“These factions do not have any ideology or any fixed stance. Their agendas are always changing,” he says. “The government can buy their loyalty with actual money, benefits or future deals.”

But even without a united response, he warns, an operation could produce consequences far beyond Zawiya.

Militias could launch further drone attacks against Tripoli, strike the pipeline supplying the refinery, damage electricity infrastructure or target the southern oilfields.

Crucially, they could also seize the Ras Ajdir crossing and cut the coastal highway linking the cities of western Libya.

The electricity threat is particularly dangerous. Libya’s ageing grid is already vulnerable to breakdowns during heatwaves and storms, while prolonged outages have repeatedly brought protesters onto the streets.

Dbeibah is already under acute pressure over shortages. Demonstrators and armed groups have surrounded government buildings in Tripoli on at least two occasions during the past year, according to Khadr.

Further disruption could fuel unrest in the capital, while attacks on the central bank or NOC would affect revenues and public spending on both sides of the country.

“Tripoli will be threatened,” Khadr warns, pointing to the combined risks of drone attacks, electricity disruption, domestic unrest and security chaos.

Eastern commander Khalifa Haftar could eventually seek to exploit that disorder. His eastern power base remains secure, while he retains ties to western tribes and armed groups.

However, Khadr believes Haftar would not move against Tripoli without an understanding with Turkey, the GNU’s principal military protector. Ankara’s relations with Haftar’s sons further complicate Libya’s east-west divide.

The consequences could nevertheless extend beyond Libya itself.

Khadr adds: “If the operation turns into a mini-civil war in western Libya, several regional players, including Egypt and Turkey, will want to sit together to find some resolution to this crisis.”