Arab Spring og borgerkrigen i Libyen

The Arab Spring is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18th December 2010. To date revolutions have occurred in Tunisia, and Egypt, a civil war in Libya, resulting in the fall of its regime.

Many demonstrations have met violent responses from authorities as well as from government militias and counter-demonstrators major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world has been "the people want to bring down the regime".

After the success of the revolution in Tunisia, a protest on living conditions began on 14 January in Benghazi, Libya, where protesters clashed with police and attacked the government offices. Anti-government protests began in Libya on 15th February 2011. By 18th February, the opposition controlled most of Benghazi, the country's second-largest city. The government dispatched elite troops and mercenaries in an attempt to recapture it, but they were repelled. By 20th February, protests had spread to the capital Tripoli. Gaddafi warned the protestors that their country could descend into civil war. The rising death toll, which currently numbers in the thousands, was drawing international condemnation, resulting in the resignation of several Libyan diplomats and their call for the regime's dismantlement.

On 26th February 2011, amidst ongoing effort by demonstrators and rebel forces to wrest control of Tripoli from the Jamahiriya, the opposition sat up an interim government in Benghazi to oppose Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's rule.