This is an excerpt from an article in our monthly Libya Focus publication.

Friday 17 April saw demonstrations in which Benghazi residents and civil society activists responded angrily to the eastern Libyan government’s continued participation in the UN-facilitated peace talks. In their opinion, there is a preferred military solution: Victory for General Khalifa Haftar and his Operation Dignity forces.

The demonstrators called for eastern Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thanni to be dismissed (his dismissal is rumoured to be imminent) as well as for an end to negotiations with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists who they called “terrorists”. Equating Muslim Brotherhood members with terrorists is a tactic that Haftar has often used: It is deeply polarising, and likely to hinder the achievement of a political peace settlement. The spread of this sentiment is dangerous, and it may contribute to an untenable transition to military rule in Libya.

Though Haftar’s forces have gained the upper hand in the fight for Benghazi, they have yet to completely expel extremists from the margins. Last week videos surfaced of Mohamed Al-Dersi in Benghazi. Al-Dersi, who is now fighting alongside the extremist Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, was imprisoned in Jordan for trying to launch a terrorist attack against the international airport in Amman. He was released a year ago after his supporters in Libya kidnapped the Jordanian Ambassador to Libya, demanding his release in exchange for the ambassador’s safety.

Ansar Al-Sharia also circulated a leaflet in Benghazi this week offering monetary rewards for the killing or capturing of leading Operation Dignity members, including Haftar, Wanis Bukhamada, Faraj Al-Barassi, Sagr Al-Jeroushi, and Mohamed Al-Hejazi.

Indiscriminate shelling has also plagued residential areas nominally controlled by the Haftar’s forces throughout last week, calling into question the strength of their hold over these districts. Heavy fighting continued in the Al-Sabri, Hawari, and Laithi districts, with a projectile barely missing the demonstrators in Kish Square on Friday. The lack of international condemnation of the ongoing violence did not go unnoticed by locals, and it only increased their resentment.

The perceived lack of engagement from the West has also provoked the eastern government to attempt to re-establish relationships with Russia and, to a lesser extent, China. Immediately following the revolution, Libyan governments told Russian and Chinese investors and governments that because of their opposition to the 2011 NATO operation that helped overthrow Muammar Qadhafi, companies from those countries were not welcome in Libya. But, after years of Western disengagement, Libya is more and more desperate for support. Last week Prime Minister al-Thanni and Haftar both travelled to Russia to solicit military assistance, including implementation of arms contracts signed between Qadhafi and the Russian government in 2008. Under these contracts, Libya agreed to buy SU-35 and SU-30MK fighter jets as well as KA-52, KA-28, MI-17 and MI35M helicopters, S-300PMU2 air defence systems, T-90 tanks, TOR-M1 missile systems, and other small arms.

After the meetings, it was announced that Russia would supply the eastern government with weapons if the UN arms embargo was lifted. Eastern authorities in Libya tried unsuccessfully to get this embargo lifted in February 2015. Large potential military support, conditional on an end to the arms embargo, could encourage the eastern government to be more forceful in its lobbying efforts at the UN. Russia, a permanent Security Council member, also stands to gain financially from lifting the embargo. If the eastern government lobbies other members shrewdly, the incentives may compel them to overturn the ban.