To avoid Parliament pressure to withdraw confidence from the national unity government he leads, Abdelhamid Dbeibah sought to escalate with Tunisia against the backdrop of closing the borders due to Tunisian fears of infiltration by terrorist elements and carrying out operations targeting Tunisia’s security.

Dbeibah stressed in a speech on Friday evening that terrorism is coming to Libya from abroad, and that the Libyan people are free and do not accept accusations of terrorism. He also revealed that he had sent a delegation to Tunisia to clarify the Libyan position.

“We will not accept being accused of terrorism,” he said. “You are the ones who brought us the terrorists. Hold yourself accountable before charging.”

Dbeibah hinted that the official authorities in Tunisia adopted the accusations against the Libyan state, and said, “I sent a large delegation to Tunisia to understand how we were accused of terrorism.”

Libyan observers noted that Dbeibah’s response, in which he accused Tunisia of terrorism, seemed tense and undiplomatic, which shows clear embarrassment about raising the terrorism file and the silence of the interim Libyan government about the various reports that speak of suspicious activities and movements in some cities of the Libyan West.

Observers pointed out that the Dbeibah government and its supporters are working to normalize the current situation, including maintaining the presence of multiple militias and the survival of foreign mercenaries, and they see raising doubts about this presence as targeting the government and questioning its legitimacy.

According to these observers, Dbeibah’s reaction to the reports warning of targeting Tunisia from the Libyan border gate gives credibility to these reports. They wonder about the secret of this sharpness in the way the Libyan Prime Minister responded.

Does this tension mask the growing influence of militias, mercenaries, and Turkey under the guise of government stability?

It is worth noting that Tunisia tightened its security and military measures on its southeastern border with Libya and closed it completely in conjunction with President Kais Saied’s talk about the existence of plans for assassination, murder and bloodshed.

Despite the keenness of the Libyan ministerial delegation, which visited Tunisia two days ago, to confirm that things are good between the two countries and deny reports of terrorism, Tunisia insisted on continuing to close the borders for an indefinite period.

This confirms that the Tunisian official authorities were not convinced by the assurances they received from the Libyan government.

In continuation of the decision issued since 2013, last Friday, Kais Saied extended the declaration of the southern border triangle as a buffer border zone for an additional year, starting from the twenty-ninth of August, by a presidential order issued in the Official Gazette, while last Sunday, he announced a complete closure of the Ras Al-Jdir and Dhiba-Wazen border crossings with Libya, despite the Libyan authorities’ efforts to open them.

The security authorities justified their position with the health measures taken to prevent the spread of the Corona virus.

According to well-informed Libyan political circles, the escalation and tension that came in Dbeibah’s speech against Tunisia and accusing it of exporting terrorism was an attempt to escape from internal pressures, the causes of which are social, health and financial, and which resulted from the government’s failure to keep its promises.

Dbeibah’s escalation with Tunisia, according to these circles, was an attempt to daunt the parliament, which refuses to approve the budget and threatens to withhold its confidence in the government. This was reflected in the statements of Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh.

Dbeibah had attacked Parliament and accused it of obstructing the work of the state by refusing to ratify the budget, noting that the reasons for not agreeing to his repeated budget proposals were “unreal and flimsy,” and he blamed the parliament for obstructing the elections scheduled for next December.

The budget row appeared to be a key element in the growing rift between rival political factions, undermining a UN-backed process seen as the best chance for peace in years.

This week, Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh demanded that Dbeibah appear before Parliament to be questioned about his government’s performance or face a vote of no confidence.

“The election problem is not logistical, but rather a purely legislative problem,” Dbeibah said. “We have presented a program to facilitate the electoral process and its implementation.”

It should be noted here that the failure to hold the elections could lead to an end to the political process and would fuel the conflict that has destroyed large swathes of Libyan cities, attracted major external powers and provided a foothold for foreign mercenaries along the front lines.

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