Sup you beautiful bastards.

You have a fantastic Friday.

Welcome to your Extra Friday, Deep Dive.

And today we're going to be talking about an unstable country that used to be in the news all the time

but has recently been overshadowed by conflicts in places like Yemen, Syria, and Venezuela.

What I'm talking about is the civil war in Libya.

And while Libya may only be home to a little over 6 million people,

it is the fourth biggest country in Africa by size,

and it has the largest oil reserves on the continent.

And this nation isn't only important because of the natural resources, but also

because of its geographic location.

Lydia sits right on the southern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, making one of the primary

gateways to Europe for African and Middle Eastern migrants fleeing violence, poverty,

and government suppression in their home country. So much like we've seen with

Syria, what happens in Libya often spills over its borders. But in order to fully

understand the conflict that's going on in the nation today, We're going to have to go back to February 2011,

the height of the Arab Spring.

You may remember that this was a pivotal month

for many countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Protest movements against authoritarian leaders

that erupted across the region, forcing out leaders like

Ben Ali and Tunisia and Hosini Mubarak in Egypt who had been in power for decades.

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