Foreign Minister George Vella.

The streets of Tripoli were eerily quiet yesterday morning in anticipation of a bloody confrontation that could erupt between two powerful militias vying for power in Libya.

“Many people are not going out unless they have to. It feels like the calm before the storm,” a Maltese businessman based in the capital told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“It took my employees just 15 minutes to get to work instead of the usual 50. There was none of the usual traffic chaos in the streets... But we’re hoping that there will be no fighting as the two sides are negotiating.”

There are an estimated 250 Maltese working in Libya right now and the embassy in Tripoli has urged people not to stay outdoors after 10pm and to keep mobile phones charged at all times in case of an emergency.

On top of that there are contact points at the embassy that try to reach out to the expats in Libya.

Despite what is being described as a calm situation, the relatively small scale sporadic gun fights that are now classified as normal persist.

“Just last week, I was held at a roadblock with a Libyan friend of mine because they suspected he was from a rival militia,” a Maltese construction worker who lives just outside the city said.

“In the end we were fine, but it’s unnerving to be held by an impatient group of men waiving AK47s in your face.”

During the 2011 revolution, different factions and tribes, moderates and Islamists fought a common enemy but after Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow, they struggled to find a political formula that could unite them.

The temperature started rising in the capital after armed men associated with retired General Khalifa Haftar stormed Parliament in Tripoli on Sunday and said they had suspended it.

That followed an air and ground assault last week on the Benghazi bases of Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda which managed to assert itself forcefully in the east of the country.

But the mercury really reached fever pitch on Thursday, when units from the Misurata militia – which is aligned to the current Prime Minister Ahmed Maiteeq – reached Tripoli.

“At that point everyone assumed there would be a bloody confrontation with the rival Zliten militia (which supports General Haftar) but there has been nothing so far, save for some sporadic skirmishes which are rather normal,” the same source said.

The Maltese government is doing what the rest of the world is, monitoring the situation closely without taking sides.

“I know it’s become a buzzword but the reality is that the situation is just too fluid. The assessment you make now may not hold for tomorrow,” Foreign Minister George Vella said.

“Our ambassador is in Tripoli and though there was a period when we were considering recalling him, the present decision is that he should stay there.”

It’s unnerving to be held by an impatient group of men waiving AK47s in your face- Maltese construction worker

A recent meeting in Lisbon of the 5+5 Western Mediterranean forum agreed to appoint a task force of envoys from a select group of states, including Malta, to discuss the Libyan situation, starting on June 2 in Tunisia.

“The hope is that good judgement will prevail and the different sides will understand they have more to gain through a peaceful solution than through conflict. I got the sense from the Libyan Foreign Minister (Mohammed Abdulaziz) in Lisbon that there is a feeling of people having had enough in Libya but the question is what it is going to take to move forward,” Dr Vella said.

The wider context of the confrontation really goes to the heart of the political conundrum facing Libya at the moment, which concerns the position of Islamist groups in government and public life in general.

A Benghazi-based analyst said: “I would say there is widespread popular support for Operation Dignity (the name of Haftar’s campaign to purge the Libyan government of Islamic extremists) and for what he stands for but that should not be mixed up with support for Haftar himself.”

A former general under Gaddafi, Haftar fell out with the regime in the wake of Libya’s failed invasion of neighbouring Chad in 1987. Eventually, he ended up in the US.

He returned to Libya during the 2011 uprising and helped topple Gaddafi but his past cooperation with the CIA leaves many doubting whether he is acting on the agenda of foreigners.

“The situation in Benghazi at the moment is disastrous. Every other day we hear of an assassination attempt on a government official, a police officer or someone in the administration,” the analyst said.

The assessment tallies with that of Maltese businessmen who have interests in Libya and who all insisted on speaking anonymously in view of the delicate situation.

“Anecdotally, I would say Islamists are in an absolute minority but they are very vocal and their presence is felt a lot. Today in Tripoli, if someone had to put up a billboard with a woman’s face on it, it would be vandalised on religious grounds almost immediately. Many Libyans are not used to this (religious fundamentalism) and they do not support it, which is why they support what Haftar is doing.”

The question remains, however, whether this latest development will lead to a widespread civil war in a country that is still coming to terms with the upheaval of the revolution that toppled the Gaddafi regime.

General Haftar gathered support from current and former military officers, political figures, civil society groups, and some of the militias that dominate many Libyan cities. If resolved, the tug of war with the Misurata militia could be another step in consolidating this coalition.

But as one analyst put it, that still leaves the Islamist groups which are also powerful, “and just as dogged and well funded. There is a real danger that the country could descend again into an ugly protracted civil war,” he said.

mmicallef@timesofmalta.com