The Boulos plan was elegant in its cynicism: Haftar takes the presidency, a Dbeibah takes the prime ministership, and Washington gets a unified Libya without the mess of elections. That plan is now in intensive care. Allegations that Saddam Haftar — deputy commander of the Libyan National Army and the US-favored heir to his father's eastern fiefdom — personally oversaw a drone campaign against western Libyan fuel infrastructure have made continued cooperation politically impossible for the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity. The attacks were not symbolic. Over five days in August, drones struck the Zawiya oil complex west of Tripoli, igniting a gasoline storage tank holding approximately 4.5 million litres of fuel. The strikes worsened electricity blackouts across western Libya, creating the kind of popular fury that no prime minister can absorb and survive. A subsequent September raid in southern Tripoli netted three Libyans and one Spanish citizen allegedly plotting an attack on Tripoli airport, with the detained Libyans reportedly affiliated with the Tareq ben Ziyad brigade — an LNA formation under Saddam Haftar's orbit. The motivation, according to GNU sources, was straightforward coercion: Haftar was angry that Dbeibah was stalling on the Boulos merger, and suspected Tripoli of encouraging southern tribes to attack LNA forces. The drone strikes were punishment and pressure simultaneously — a warlord's son using military assets to force a diplomatic outcome. That this is the person the US State Department was grooming as a unifying security figure is worth sitting with. The damage extends beyond the Boulos track. The UN-sponsored 4+4 talks — involving Libya's four main political institutions — had produced an August agreement to stage elections within two years, endorsed by the UN Security Council. That framework, which minister Walid Ellafi described as deriving legitimacy "from the will of the people," is now contaminated by the same trust collapse. The GNU cannot credibly negotiate with an eastern bloc whose leading figure allegedly ran a sabotage operation against civilian infrastructure. Intelligence from the arrested plotters is being described as a "goldmine" — information capable of weakening Khalifa Haftar himself, not just his son. GNU sources stated bluntly: "In light of what has been discovered it is impossible to work with Saddam." No formal decision has been announced, but the political reality has already shifted. The allegations may also crack open the Haftar succession. Saddam, backed by the UAE, has dominated both military resources and political tracks. But his brothers Khaled and Belqasim — aligned more with Egypt — have begun challenging his position. If the sabotage allegations stick, Egypt gains leverage and the UAE loses its preferred candidate, reshuffling external-power dynamics across eastern Libya. What emerges is a pattern familiar across fragile states: external actors build unity plans around strongmen, strongmen use violence to negotiate, and the population — enduring blackouts, displacement, and 13 years without stable governance — absorbs every cost. Boulos insists "it's not about families or names," but the entire architecture of his plan depended on exactly two families, and one of them just allegedly bombed the other's fuel supply.
