Since denouncing Libya’s anemic central government in February, rogue ex-general Khalifa Haftar has mounted a daring offensive to root out the Muslim Brotherhood and extremist militias from Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi in what he calls “Operation Dignity.”

A former CIA asset who has boasted of his U.S.-backed plot to overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the former Gaddafi loyalist turned rebel was once described as Libya's Ahmed Chalabi — a widely discredited player legitimized mainly by his ties to Washington. But this time around, Haftar says he is going it alone. His anti-Islamist campaign seems to be a confluence of interests held by the Middle East’s powerful stakeholders in Cairo, Riyadh and even Washington, but Haftar insists says his loyal forces are merely answering the call of violence-weary Libyans to drive out the country’s powerful extremist militias.

“If I’m an agent, I’m an agent for the Libyan people only," he told the Egyptian daily Al-Masri Al-Youm when asked whether he still served his former masters in Washington.

Since Gaddafi was dethroned and then publicly executed in 2011, oil-rich Libya has been ruled by the writ of militias, some in support of the newly established National Congress and others opposed. Intertwined rivalries have bred surging violence that increasingly threatens to spill over into neighboring Egypt, while the rise of Islamist groups like the Brotherhood has many Arab governments on edge. Ansar Al-Sharia, a transnational extremist group that has gained a foothold amid Libya’s chaos, has meanwhile waged terror attacks in the eastern city of Benghazi — not to mention the 2012 raid that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

After being ridiculed for a failed coup attempt in February, Haftar launched his current offensive in May. With this he has somehow managed to gain the support of Libya’s air force and regular military forces, as well as the partnership of various militias in the nation's west that oppose the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist factions.

Many say only foreign sponsorship could explain Haftar's unlikely resurgence. After all, he has a well-documented history of affiliation with the CIA and even lived in Virginia for 21 years while exiled from the Gaddafi government.

Analysts say there is little chance the U.S. is involved with Haftar this time around, even if the rogue general has positioned himself as a partner in the war on terror. For one, Washington is suspicious of Haftar’s long-term intentions. But Washington is also aware that its last meddling in Libya — the 2011 NATO airstrikes on Gaddafi — bred the current chaos.

But his anti-extremist rhetoric does seem to be aimed as much at potential foreign backers as at Libyans. In the same May interview, he advertised his counter-extremist services to the entire world by saying that one of the pillars of Operation Dignity was to “prevent the export of terrorism to our neighboring countries.”

He later elaborated to Egypt’s Al-Ahram: “Terrorism is a common enemy to all of us in the Arab region and the entire world ... These countries should assess whether securing their borders requires providing [us] support or not. We won’t demand it from them.”

Many suspect Egypt already has Haftar’s back. Cairo, after all, is faced with the immediate threat of violence and extremism spilling across the border from Libya's Islamist-controlled eastern provinces. Egypt's strongman president, Abdel Fatteh El Sisi, is waging his own brutal crackdown against the Brotherhood's branch in Egypt, and there have already been reports that anti-Sisi Islamist groups have been armed and trained in Libya.