Who Launched the Attack from Our Soil?
On Tuesday, March 3, the Russian liquefied natural gas tanker Arctic Meta Gas came under attack by naval drones off the Libyan coast. The incident, which triggered massive explosions and caused severe damage, forced the tanker’s 30-member crew to abandon ship in search of safety. The vessel then drifted aimlessly across the Mediterranean for days until the Mediterranean storm Julina pushed it toward our shores, carrying with it the threat of an environmental disaster that nearly struck the country.
The story spread like wildfire. Hardly a household or gathering in Libya was without discussions about its potential consequences: fuel spilling into our territorial waters, gas spreading through our skies, a massive explosion threatening marine life, and much more. Yet today, I choose to focus on three fundamental points that were lost amid the noise of the public panic:
First: Violated Sovereignty and Proxy Wars
Moscow openly accused Ukraine of targeting the tanker, which it described as part of the Shadow Fleet used to circumvent the international sanctions imposed on Russia because of the war in Ukraine. Russian authorities also confirmed that the drones which struck the vessel had been launched from Libyan territory. While Ukraine's intention to strike its enemy's economy may be clear, the more important question for us is: Were those drones really launched from our soil?
Intelligence reports including one published by Africa Intelligence suggest that Ukraine has been exploiting Libya's security vacuum to expand its operations against Russian interests across Africa and the Mediterranean. This raises an even more alarming question: who allowed our country to become a battleground for settling international scores in a conflict that has nothing to do with us? Who allowed Ukraine to use our territory to retaliate against its enemy? And what business do we have in a war that never directly affected us and in which we are allied with neither side? Did those who brought Ukraine onto our soil and dragged Libya into this dirty conflict not expect that we would bear the consequences if things went wrong? They did go wrong, and we almost paid the price for Ukraine's actions against Russia.
The political adolescence that governs Libya, both east and west, seeks only to satisfy foreign powers in order to remain in office and preserve its access to wealth and privilege, while ordinary Libyans pay the price through their security, their environment, and their daily livelihoods.
Second: A Disaster or a Windfall?
As the crippled tanker drifted closer to the Bahr Essalam platform and the coast of Zuwara, political bodies, state institutions, and even municipalities rushed to issue emergency statements. Meetings were held, crisis committees were formed, and multimillion-dollar budgets were allocated to contract international companies to deal with the anticipated disaster. The scene suggested that no solution was possible without spending enormous sums of money.
Then, suddenly and without warning, that investment narrative collapsed under the weight of reality. Tugboats from Misrata, Zawiya, and Mellitah mobilized using simple local capabilities. With determination, courage, and national expertise, they towed the tanker away from danger before the supposedly indispensable international company even arrived.
This leaves us with a bitter question: why do officials insist on viewing every crisis as a windfall ?
The tugboat Al-Sumayda and its companions proved that our problems are not as technical as they are ethical, and that the solution is often far simpler than those who benefit from draining the public treasury would have us believe.
Doesn't what happened with the Russian tanker clearly demonstrate that Libya's problems are far less complicated than self-serving officials portray them to be? That solving them may not require all these committees, councils, conferences, reconciliation initiatives, and massive budgets but simply courage and sincere intentions like those shown aboard the tugboat Al-Sumayda, whose crew boarded the damaged vessel, secured it, and guided it away to safety, leaving behind nothing but the memory of one official who sold out his country by allowing its land to become an arena for foreign rivals to settle their scores, and another who saw every event as an opportunity to inflate his own accounts.
Third: The Psychology of Panic and the Obsession with Trending
The third issue is our collective obsession with exaggeration. Officials exploited the incident to settle political scores. Journalists chased trending headlines by publishing stories about the extinction of marine life and poisoned coastlines that would supposedly remain contaminated for years. Self-appointed experts flooded television screens with catastrophic scenarios, predicting inevitable environmental devastation and even acid rain that would destroy everything in its path.
After the dust settled, however, it became clear that the gas aboard the tanker had already evaporated because of the heat, that the fuel remained safely contained within secure tanks, and that the likelihood of a leak large enough to pose a serious environmental threat had been extremely limited.
So why are we so eager to fish in troubled waters? And if the water is clear, why do we insist on muddying it ourselves just so we can fish in it? Why do we keep surrendering our minds to people who repeatedly deceive us? Is the problem within us within a collective consciousness that feeds on fear? Or is it rooted in a political and media system that flourishes only in polluted environments and thrives exclusively on crises and their aftermath?