Libya officially the State of Libya is a sovereign state in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north Egypt to the east Sudan to the southeast Chad and Niger to the south and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. The country is made of three historical regions: Tripolitania Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
The Italians supplanted the Ottoman Turks in the area around Tripoli in 1911 and did not relinquish their hold until 1943 when they were defeated in World War II. Libya then passed to UN administration and achieved independence in 1951. Following a 1969 military coup Col. Muammar al-QADHAFI assumed leadership and began to espouse his political system at home which was a combination of socialism and Islam. During the 1970s QADHAFI used oil revenues to promote his ideology outside Libya supporting subversive and terrorist activities that included the downing of two airliners - one over Scotland another in Northern Africa - and a discotheque bombing in Berlin. UN sanctions in 1992 isolated QADHAFI politically and economically following the attacks; sanctions were lifted in 2003 following Libyan acceptance of responsibility for the bombings and agreement to claimant compensation. QADHAFI also agreed to end Libya's program to develop weapons of mass destruction and he made significant strides in normalizing relations with Western nations. ++ Unrest that began in several Middle Eastern and North African countries in late 2010 erupted in Libyan cities in early 2011. QADHAFI's brutal crackdown on protesters spawned a civil war that triggered UN authorization of air and naval intervention by the international community. After months of seesaw fighting between government and opposition forces the QADHAFI regime was toppled in mid-2011 and replaced by a transitional government. Libya in 2012 formed a new parliament and elected a new prime minister. The country subsequently elected the House of Representatives in 2014 but remnants of the outgoing legislature refused to leave office and created a rival Islamist-led government the General National Congress. In October 2015 UN envoy to Libya Bernardino LEON proposed a power-sharing arrangement - known as the Libyan Political Agreement which was signed by the rival governments two months later and subsequently endorsed by the UN. The agreement called for the formation of an interim Government of National Accord or GNA and the holding of general elections within two years. However as of December 2016 the GNA had not secured House approval and several elements of the Libyan Political Agreement remained stalled resulting in rival governments continuing to operate independently.
