
With depressing inevitability, clashes have broken out between these myriad militias as they clamor for power. A potent metaphor for the country's growing infatuation with violence can be found in the changing of the wares on offer from the stalls on Al Rashid Street.
No longer are the items for sale here as innocuous as fireworks. First came the tasers and the stun batons, then the handguns—now, one table even has pump-action shotguns on display. And no one seems too bothered when someone tests a weapon, shooting into the sky in the middle of a busy street that is just a five minute walk from the luxurious Corinthia hotel, where Prime Minister Ali Zeidan lives in his penthouse suit.
Over the last couple of months Libya’s parliament has become gridlocked, still unable to agree on what the country's new constitution should mean. Electricity blackouts have become part of everyday life in the capital and there have been frequent attacks on Libyan security forces, including bombings and assassinations, but it's rare that any group comes forward to claim responsibility for them. The suspicion is that the Islamists who had a tough time in prisons and torture rooms during the Gaddafi era are behind the violence, but for now all we have are tales of blood feuds and rumors of militias with invisible agendas.
Footage from the ongoing bloodbath in Cairo is rolling non-stop on TV news, adding to a citywide sense of foreboding as September 11th rolls around again. (Last year on that date, the American ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three more US embassy staff were killed by rocketfire from Islamist militants.) Hundreds of armed vehicles have been flooding into the capital as the government braces itself for a coup attempt from militias associated with Zintan. At the outskirts of the city, there have been skirmishes with machine guns and RPGs.
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