Violence has escalated in Libya as rival factions fight for control of the weakened country after the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, and LIGNET chief analyst Fred Fleitz says to
expect the chaos to continue.
"The violence in Libya is further deterioration of what happened in 2011," Fleitz told J.D. Hayworth and John Bachman on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV on Monday.
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"A stable government was never set up," he explained. "The government was relying on armed militias to carry out security."
Fleitz explained that the problem is that after Gadhafi was overthrown mostly "by the British and the French" in 2011, "Western states didn't send much security assist."
"On one hand, that can be understood because the Libyan government did not want a foreign footprint in the country," he added. "It's pretty clear that most Western countries are focusing on ways to exploit the oil resources of Libya and not setting up stable government structures," he said.
Fleitz explained that "there are so many militia groups . . . split by tribe and region" and "there doesn't seem to be any solution to this."
He predicts that "if the violence doesn't stop" . . . the country will break up into several parts."
"There doesn't seem to be any solution to this," he added.
On Saturday, the U.S. government
evacuated the embassy in Tripoli, as did the British, Italian and Dutch with their embassies.
LIGNET analyst and former CIA analyst Lisa Ruth told Newsmax that in spite of the violence the United States "should keep the embassy open."
She added, however, that "it's important to get the people out" because "it is incredibly volatile there."
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