I recently made the five-hour drive from Tripoli to the little town of Harawah, home to the Awlad Suleiman tribe, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Sirte in eastern Libya. Just before reaching Harawah, I passed through the last checkpoint manned by the Libyan National Army (LNA), headed by Gen. Khalifa Hifter. The single guard in military uniform at the checkpoint waved me through without question.

Libya has been torn between two would-be leaders: Hifter in Tobruk in the northeast, and Fayez al-Sarraj, the prime minister of the Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli in the northwest. The UN recognizes the GNA; Hifter's LNA has the support of Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and France.

On the day I arrived, locals were talking about how one of Harawah’s sons had advanced into southwest Libya and how he'd been welcomed by the locals in places like Sabha, the regional capital of Fezzan, as southern Libya is known. With a sense of pride, one of the locals told me, “[Officer] Hassan Maatouk is leading LNA’s first brigade to enter the southern region since the [first] civil war ended in October 2011," when Moammar Gadhafi was ousted.

Maatouk initially had founded his own militia, funded by his rich brother, to keep security and calm in Harawah after the little town’s violent episode with the Islamic State (IS), before it was defeated in December 2016. At some point last year, Hifter heard of Maatouk and asked if he wanted to join the LNA, which he did.