Algeria strives to regain prominence as world powers debate Libya's future

Libya’s chaos has endured for nine years. As various governments and international peace initiatives have come and gone, arms — already in plentiful supply before 2011 — have flooded the country and, from there, made their way across the region, fueling unrest and exacerbating existing conflicts. 

Almost from the opening shots of 2011, Libya’s war has been defined by the competing interests of regional and international powers, often at the expense of local ones who have borne much of the brunt of Libyan instability.

Now, as Russia and Turkey jockey for dominant roles within Libya’s fractured landscape, regional actors again find themselves sidelined. Tunisia, a neighbor of both Libya and Algeria whose internal security situation has been undermined by the terror camps that flourished in Libya’s chaos, was only invited at the last minute to the Jan. 19 peace conference in Berlin, an invitation it ultimately refused. Algeria, long one of the dominant actors within North Africa and historically a prime mover within the various peace processes, finds itself struggling to regain lost ground after months of internal uncertainty.

“Algeria's ability to weigh on the Libyan crisis has been severely undermined by domestic instability over the past year,” Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa Project director for the Crisis Group, told Al-Monitor. “Only since the election of the new president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Algeria has been able to pursue a coherent and audible policy on Libya. Indeed, after the visit of Turkey's foreign minister in early January and his attempt to convince Algeria to bless and provide support to Ankara's operation, Tebboune publicly called Tripoli ‘a red line,’ affirming that Algeria is against any form of foreign interference and wants to find a peaceful solution to the current crisis [in Libya].”