TRIPOLI, Libya — On May 20, seven Libyan men — some of whom were high-ranking military officers under the former Moammar Gadhafi regime — arrived in Tripoli from their self-imposed exile in Cairo. None of them would have openly set foot in Tripoli unless they had been assured their safety was guaranteed in the Libyan capital, which they hadn't visited since Gadhafi's regime fell in 2011.The group of three former military officers, three activists and one university professor had been invited to attend a reconciliation meeting in the capital hosted by the different militias that are the de facto power brokers in western Libya. One of them, Naji Ahrar, had been a brigadier in the former Libyan armed forces.
While in exile, the men joined one of several political groups set up in Cairo and Tunis. Such groups broadly define themselves as representatives of the former regime’s political agenda, which opposes foreign intervention in the country, particularly the NATO military intervention in the 2011 civil war.