Libya is Careening Toward a Full Blown Civil War

Battles are raging in Tripoli between forces aligned with the UN-backed government and a renegade general named Khalifa Haftar. Haftar and his militias had controlled eastern parts of the country, including the city of Benghazi, but in recent weeks he has marched his troops westward, toward the capitol Tripoli, in an effort to oust the Libya's internationally recognized government.

Several hundred people have been killed in this fighting. Thousands have been displaced, and the situation is now very much on the precipice of descending into a full blown civil war.

On the line with me to discuss what is happening in Libya and why we need to be paying attention to this escalating crisis is Mary Fitzgerald, a former journalist and researcher who has been studying Libya since 2011. In this conversation she breaks down the complex dynamics of this conflict in ways that I found very understandable.

No one knows which side the US is backing

We kick off discussing a rather unusual turn of events. O…