Hifter isn’t seen as a hero. Rather, he’s won support because no one has been held accountable for near daily assassinations. One of the latest casualties was an outspoken human rights activist and lawyer named Salwa Bugaighis, who was stabbed and shot in her home this week by unidentified assailants in a killing that sent shock waves through Benghazi.
Before her death, she said in interview that she didn’t trust Hifter, who once served Gadhafi. But she said he is capitalizing on real fears that many ordinary Libyans have of Islamist militias, Gadhafi loyalists and criminal gangs operating in the security vacuum.
The most extreme of those militias in eastern Libya is Ansar al-Sharia, which has vowed to bring in foreign fighters if Hifter doesn’t stop his battle. The country’s grand mufti, Sheikh Sadiq Ghariani, says those fighting against Hifter are martyrs sacrificing their lives for God. The battle is morphing into the biggest crisis in Libya since Gadhafi’s ouster in 2011.
Hifter’s critics say that he threatens to rip the country apart by painting all Islamists as terrorists and unilaterally going to war.
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