The Compass

The rule of the gun

The Compass

BBC reporter Tim Whewell, who covered the 2011 uprising, returns to the country to ask why plans to integrate the militias into a unified national army came to nothing. He talks to past and present militiamen - including the young man Wadah al-Keesh, who later left his group in disgust - and Mohammed al-Durat, truck-driver turned police commander, who has reunited with a band of friends to fight in every major battle over the last ten years - and believes he will in future too. Tim talks to revolutionary politician Abdul-Rahman al-Suwayhli and famous brigade commander Salah Badi about the lead-up to civil war - and hears too about its human cost from a young woman, Rasha Akhdar, who lost her father in fighting around Tripoli. Back in Britain, he learns the inside story of the UK's failed attempt to train a new Libyan fighting force from senior military officer Hugh Blackman - and asks former foreign secretary William Hague whether foreign powers could have adopted different policies to help stabilise Libya.

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