Kidnapping shows Libya in chaos

Mathieu Galtier and Jesse Singal | Special for USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Libyan prime minister released after abduction Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has been freed after being kidnapped by armed gunmen early Thursday morning.

Some in Libya angry over U.S. raid

Raid netted al-Qaeda suspect Abu Anaas al-Libi

Gunmen abducted PM and two of his guards

TRIPOLI, Libya — Even by the standards of a country used to turmoil and bloodshed, it has been a dramatic week for Libya, and locals say they are fed up.

"Of course the government is weak!" said Younes Lanis, 27, a businessman. "I mean, every group has been trying to gain influence over the others. The government and the Congress cannot do anything against them."

Thursday, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was kidnapped by an armed group, only to be freed a short while later.

Saturday, American commandos snatched Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, an al-Qaeda figure long sought by the United States for allegedly plotting the deadly attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, off the street in a Tripoli suburb.

Both events, analysts say, highlight the chaotic nature of Libya's slow, arguably stalled transition toward a functional democracy and show the country lacks the stability to be considered anything but a work in progress.

"It's not good," said Peter Juul, a policy analyst at the Washington-based Center for American Progress. "That's the short answer. It's been a problematic process ever since (Libyan President Moammar) Gadhafi fell to rein in the militias, to establish some sort of state structure."

Terrorism has continued to thrive in Libya since the fall of the Gadhafi regime in 2011, which saw the country divided and militias taking control in various areas. The resulting lawlessness has allowed terrorists to move weapons and fighters easily across borders.

Many of the militias include Islamic militants and have ideologies similar to al-Qaeda's. Libya's government relies on militias to act as security forces since the police and military remain in disarray.

The militias are rooted in the brigades that fought in the uprising. Many are paid by the Defense or Interior Ministries — which are in charge of the military and police, respectively — although the ministries are unable to control them.

Zeidan was snatched from the Corinthia Hotel — where he was staying in Libya's capital, Tripoli — at around 4 a.m. local time. About 150 gunmen drove up to the hotel. Some remained in the lobby while others went up to the 21st floor where Zeidan's residence is located.

It took other militias to rescue Zeidan by storming the site where he was held in the capital.

"Facts on the ground now are clearer than ever before: Libya is ruled by militias," said prominent rights campaigner Hassan al-Amin.

Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, said the events show Libya is in a state of chaos.

"You have a struggle between a nascent centralized state desperate to be born and the fringes," he said. "The regions, the tribes, the special interests, the Islamists, who are really trying to prevent a state being established and to maximize their own interests."

Mattia Toaldo, a policy fellow for the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said persistent Western focus on terrorism can obscure the more complicated nature of what's happening in Libya.

"The problem now is that we have several centers of power in Libya, and this shouldn't be labeled under the simplistic category of terrorism, but rather under the more complex category of power struggles," he said.

The perception of foreign influence doesn't help the situation, Toaldo said.

"Libyans are very nationalist, are very jealous of their national identity," he said. "Several countries tried to intrude into Libyan affairs since 2011, and they all failed.

"U.S. actions [such as the raid] have tilted the balance, probably — we don't know for how long — in favor of militias."

Never was that clearer than in the kidnapping of Zeidan.

"It's not a good thing when anyone can just kidnap a country's elected leader," said Daniel Byman, research director at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy. "This shows the weakness of the government and the relative impunity of even small bands of armed groups. So it means that the government is effectively hostage to all those groups, and hence they're reluctant to take any bold action that could alienate these groups."

Part of the problem for Zeiden is a growing sense that he lacks the power to rein in the country's many competing groups, said Jason Pack, president of LibyaAnalysis.com and a researcher of Libyan history at Cambridge University.

"A big stumbling block is that he's not willing to stare down his opponents," he said.

At least some Libyans in Tripoli seemed to agree.

"Nobody cares about Zeidan or the government," said Emad Mohamed Dala, 25, a taxi driver. "He has done nothing for us."

Although the United States may have netted a high-value terrorist in its raid Saturday, the victory could come at considerable cost, Toaldo said.

"On the one hand, we're saying that we support the Libyan government," he said. "On the other hand, actions like that undermine to a great extent the credibility of the Libyan government."

Contributing: The Associated Press. Singal reported from Berlin.