Speaking on Sunday during a seminar held by his Tripoli based Ministry of Interior entitled ”Security Performance Assessment and New Arrangements for a Secure Capital”, Acting Interior Minister Emad Trabelsi said the Ministry had spent 50 billion dinars over 13 years, and the result was nothing.
In his 45-minute answer to questions from the podium and interjections, Trabelsi warned that if Libya does not come out of this year’s security (militia) crises it will be a disaster. At the end of 2025, he said, Libya should be celebrating the real end of years of tribalism, regionalism and militias and should be celebrating the consolidation of state agencies.
If all current security agencies (state recognised but unaccountable militias) affiliated with the Minister of Interior, the Presidential Council, and the Prime Minister’s Cabinet are not dissolved, he cautioned, Libya will return to square one in a few months.
He further added that if the Security Committee created in 2011 is not disbanded, ‘‘we will be back to square one’’ in terms security reform. He said that committee was created during the period of a security void when there were no regular state security forces.
Tripoli government to dissolve all militias
The Tripoli government, he reconfirmed, has taken it upon itself to dissolve all armed formations and support the military and security institutions, and citizens must support this approach, he stressed.
Militia reintegration into the police and army
All security agencies must be dissolved and their members absorbed within the Ministry of Interior, confirming that he had submitted a proposal to the Prime Minister in this regard. He stressed the state must have control over prisons.
Dominance of militias over state institutions
He acknowledged the government’s inability to maintain security and acknowledged the dominance of armed groups over state institutions.
Militias stronger than police
We have been unable to arrest more than 40,000 wanted individuals over the past three years because they belong to armed groups (militias) that are superior to the security services in armament and equipment. This, he admitted was at a time when police officers do not even possess personal weapons to defend themselves,
When we try to arrest them, he bemoaned, we find they are members of heavily armed militias – armed more than the police. We have little arms in comparison, he admitted.
Militias had pressured government sectors to allocate budgets to parallel security agencies and not to the police. Militias used to influence government decisions. Now the Ministry of Interior is getting support from the government. We hope it is real, clear support, he said.
Trabelsi complained that militias have armoured vehicles while the police have ordinary cars. They picked the most qualified police members and reassigned them to their militias. Yet people complain that we are not doing a good job – without support, funding and our best qualified personnel, he exclaimed.
We had not received the required financial support for the Ministry of Interior, and the ministry only provides food supplies to the Tripoli Security Directorate, the Tripoli Periphery, and the (Western / Nefusa) Mountain. We do not have the capacity to fund the remaining Directorates, ‘‘even with a bottle of water’’, he revealed.
He acknowledged the government’s inability to maintain security and admitted that armed groups had controlled state institutions in Tripoli in 2023 and 2024.
He admitted militias secure all the top state agencies such as the Central Bank of Libya, the Ministry of Finance, the Audit Bureau, and influenced government decisions. These militias are loyal or aligned to political streams, cities, tribes etc – not the state.
Division of power
Those freed by the Public Prosecution after investigation (for lack of evidence, for example), are not our responsibility once freed, he stressed, noting the different roles the police, the Public Prosecution and the Courts play. The Police cannot carryout all roles, he said.
Anti-drug smuggling effort
He said Libya has become a real conduit for drug smuggling. He revealed that Libya is ‘‘contracting with one of the largest international companies’’ (without naming it) to secure all air, land, and ports in Libya to eradicate drug smuggling.
‘‘Why are current security personnel wearing ranks and receiving salaries when they can’t even secure the country’s ports’’, he lamented.
Need US$ 5 billion – There is nothing without security
He requested US$ 5 billion from the Ministry of Finance to invest in security, saying, “The best investment is in security, even better than reconstruction.” There can be no health, education, development, construction. There is nothing without security, he stressed.
Future support only to regular security forces
He linked support for the Western Region’s Security (police) Directorates to their unity, saying, “Support is given to the Directorates, not to the armed groups.”
He also revealed the sale of official security vehicles after they were repainted, and the seizure of offices and public funds allocated for security.
We give militias cars and money and offices. They repaint the cars and sell them. There will be no more money to militias. Only to Security Directorates, he warned.
The Security Plan – dissolving militias
Referring to the spate of Tripoli militia versus regular security forces clashes in May and June, he said these are not a (militia) struggle for control, but rather a security plan that will be extended to other cities. Its success requires dissolving the security services and reorganizing them according to the Security Plan. There is real action by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Defence (Zubi), he said.
He said in the absence of the state, the militias filled the security void. There had been no choice in the past years but to use militias to impose security, but now, the regular police cannot work with parallel security agencies (militias), he stressed.
Reached out to Kara and Ghnewa to demobilise and reintegrate
Trabelsi revealed that he had spoken with all the heads of military formations (militias), including Abdel Raouf Kara (the head of the Special Deterrence Force (SDF/Rada) and (the recently killed in opaque circumstances) Abdelghani Ghnewa Al-Kikly, (former head of Stability Support Agency SSA).
He said they had spoken more than once (at Abdul Hakim Al Sheikh’s house) to work together to build a police force and enforce the rule of law and the state. He said he had offered to reintegrate them by offering them leadership of any existing regular police force (implying they had not taken up his offer).
60 percent of Tripoli militias demobilised
While another speaker at the seminar stated in Trabelsi’s presence that 60 percent of Tripoli militias had been demobilised and reintegrated, Trabelsi interjected a piece of honest caution, saying that his previous experience of militia agreements to reintegrate was not good. He said they would agree and then renege on their agreement.
Army
Trabelsi said there is no army in the capital, Tripoli, to apprehend criminals, and that he will undertake real action in cooperation with the armed forces.
Focus on security in Tripoli
The Security Plan will focus on the capital, which has a population of 3 million. If the security problems there are resolved, they will be resolved throughout Libya. Tripoli has a mixed population, and it is more complicated to solve the security problem here, he explained.
Fuel smuggling
Libya used to suffer from the total control of militias affiliated with political parties, tribal leaders and elders, who in the absence of the state, controlled the state institutions.
Government officials and elders and leaders from the tribes of the West Coast are behind fuel smuggling operations, and their daily revenues reach more than 2 million euros, he claimed. More than 2 million litres of petrol were smuggled daily, in addition to the smuggled quantities of diesel. Of course they are going to resist anti-fuel smuggling efforts, he exclaimed.
Anti-fuel smuggling Security Room
Trabelsi said a Joint Security Room is going to be created to monitor petrol trucks going to petrol stations using tracking and cameras to distribute fuel. Today, fuel is available at petrol stations in the smuggling areas of Western Tripoli (west and southwest of Tripoli) as part of the Ministry of Interior’s Security Plan.
Call for public support
Trabelsi called on the public to support regular regional security institutions, not political or personal support. Support the police, he pleaded. When the people support the police, we can operate. But when the tribes and regions work against the police, the police cannot operate.
Accountability
Commenting on his own financial transparency and accountability, Trabelsi said Libyans are free to pray to God and curse him if it transpires that he has stollen ‘‘a quarter of a dinar’’ from their public money. I bear full responsibility for the mistakes of my brother Abdalla and the transgressions of the General Security Service, which his brother heads.
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