Can Libya's Oil Boom Survive After Saif al-Islam Gaddafi's Assassination?
The killing of Muammar Gaddafi's son in a targeted raid exposes deep fractures in Libya's stability just days after the country secured its largest foreign energy deal in over a decade
Welcome to the Thursday edition of Oasis Media Collective’s flagship Explainer series, delivering a breakdown of the most important geopolitical developments changing Africa today.
What Happened
In the early hours of February 3, 2026, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was killed in a targeted attack at his residence in Zintan, a western Libyan city where he had lived since his release from militia custody years earlier. Four masked gunmen disabled the compound’s surveillance cameras before raiding the house and shooting him multiple times. He was pronounced dead at approximately 2:30 AM., along with at least three others killed in the assault, including a local militia figure responsible for the site’s security.
Libya’s Attorney General’s Office immediately opened a criminal investigation, with forensic reports confirming death by multiple gunshot wounds. The attackers fled and remain unidentified, with no group claiming responsibility. The sophistication of the operation—disabling surveillance, executing a nighttime raid, and eliminating multiple security personnel—suggests a professionally planned hit rather than a spontaneous act of violence.
Saif al-Islam’s political team announced his death publicly, calling it a “treacherous and cowardly assassination” and demanding independent investigations under both Libyan and international oversight. His lawyer Khaled al-Zaidi and adviser Abdullah Othman confirmed the killing, as did members of his family. The influential 444th Combat Brigade felt compelled to issue a categorical denial of involvement, indicating they were among those facing suspicion or rumor.
Born in Tripoli in June 1972, Saif al-Islam served as his father Muammar Gaddafi’s right-hand man from 2000 to 2011. Western-educated and English-speaking, he positioned himself as a reformer and played a pivotal role in rehabilitating Libya’s international standing. His diplomatic efforts were instrumental in Libya’s December 2003 agreement with Washington to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction programs, including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as long-range ballistic missiles.
However, when popular uprisings erupted against the Gaddafi regime in 2011, Saif al-Islam sided firmly with his father. “We fight here in Libya, we die here in Libya,” he told Reuters during the revolution. Following the regime’s collapse, he was wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity for his role in the 2011 crackdown. A Tripoli court sentenced him to death in absentia in 2015, though Zintani authorities refused to hand him over or enforce the verdict.
Before his death, Saif al-Islam had been attempting a political comeback, including a failed bid to run in Libya’s indefinitely delayed December 2021 presidential elections and recent efforts to launch a reconciliation initiative aimed at bridging the country’s fractured political landscape.
Why It Matters
Libya is in the midst of a cautious diplomatic and economic resurgence. The country has been working to stabilize internally while advancing relations with regional neighbors. Recent ministerial meetings with Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia have centered on Libyan stability as a shared priority, signaling renewed engagement with the Arab Maghreb.
More significantly, Libya has made impressive strides in securing oil agreements that could reshape its economic future. With the ninth-largest oil reserves globally and the largest in Africa, combined with its strategic Mediterranean location serving as a gateway between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, the country has long attracted interest from international energy corporations. Just last week, the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC), through its subsidiary Waha Oil Company, signed a 25-year oil deal with French energy giant TotalEnergies and American firm ConocoPhillips worth over $20 billion in foreign investment.
The assassination of Saif al-Islam exposes just how fragile Libya’s stability remains beneath this veneer of progress. Despite the formal end of civil war in 2020, the country remains mired in political deadlock, divided between the Government of National Unity in Tripoli and the Libyan National Army in the east. Independent militias continue to define the political environment, with oil infrastructure frequently serving as a flashpoint for conflict.
Last year illustrated this volatility when a standoff erupted over control of the NOC. On May 29, the rival eastern government threatened to declare force majeure on oil exports due to what it described as “repeated assaults on the NOC” by the Tripoli-based government. The professional nature of Saif al-Islam’s killing has led analysts to speculate it may have been part of a coordinated effort by rival militias, which likely prompted the 444th Combat Brigade’s swift denial of involvement.
For many Libyan political actors, Saif al-Islam represented both a potential rallying point for Gaddafi-era networks and a spoiler to existing power balances between eastern and western forces. His removal carries significant implications for any future electoral process or reconciliation track, as it eliminates a figure who could have mobilized constituencies on both sides of Libya’s divide.
What’s Next
Saif al-Islam’s death marks the final blow to the Gaddafi family’s longstanding influence in Libyan politics. Although he announced his presidential candidacy in 2021, elections were indefinitely postponed and have yet to occur due to the ongoing political deadlock. His assassination removes one of the last potential bridges to constituencies that still harbor nostalgia for the pre-2011 era.
Gaddafi loyalists will likely weaponize the incident to shore up legitimacy and galvanize opposition against rival forces. His political camp has already framed the killing as a politically motivated assassination, appealing to the Libyan judiciary, the United Nations, and human rights organizations to ensure investigations identify not just the triggermen but the political instigators behind the attack.
Regional powers and private corporations will be watching developments closely. Libya currently sits at the center of a maritime dispute between Turkey and Greece over exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean. Future attacks on political figures aligned with either Ankara or Athens could further escalate existing tensions and draw external actors deeper into Libya’s internal conflicts.
Energy companies establishing operations in Libya will need to recalculate their risk assessments. Incidents like this underscore the country’s ongoing volatility, and past episodes have demonstrated how Libya’s oil wealth becomes a target during periods of instability. Drilling facilities, corporate headquarters, and personnel could all face increased threats as rival factions compete for control and influence. The $20 billion TotalEnergies-ConocoPhillips deal, while economically transformative, now carries heightened security concerns that may affect implementation timelines and operational costs.
Libya’s rival political authorities have responded cautiously to the assassination, limiting themselves to condemning the violence and calling for investigations—a reflection of the sensitivity around openly supporting or opposing a Gaddafi heir. Internationally, the killing serves as both a reminder of Libya’s persistent insecurity and a potential setback to inclusive political processes that might have accommodated Gaddafi-era constituencies in a future settlement.
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