| “Oil is our weapon”, declares a billboard campaign launched by Libya’s oil ministry. It is meant to foster national pride in a country that remains riddled with fault lines three years after the ouster of its idiosyncratic dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. But in Libya’s turbulent east, armed federalists are attempting to make that slogan a reality, on their own terms.
The group has blockaded Libya’s main oil ports since July, and has now raised an even bigger challenge. This week the rebels announced they had sold a crude-oil shipment directly to foreign buyers, entirely bypassing a central government that increasingly struggles to control much beyond the capital, Tripoli...............................................Full Article: Source
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