Libya's Largest Refinery Is on Fire. Nobody Knows Who Did It. That Is the Real Problem.

Footage verified by Al Jazeera showed huge flames and thick black smoke billowing over the Zawiya oil refinery, the largest operating refinery in Libya with a refining capacity of 120,000 barrels per day, located about 40 kilometres west of the capital Tripoli. Firefighters battled through the night on Monday and were still working to extinguish the blaze by Tuesday afternoon. No casualties were reported. And no group has claimed responsibility.

That last fact is the most telling detail in the entire story.

A fire in a storage tank burns as firefighters work to control the blaze, at an oil refinery in Zawiya, Libya August 10, 2026.

Three Attacks in Three Days

The National Oil Corporation said the fire broke out on Monday evening at tank number 402-T, belonging to the Brega Oil Company. The tank, which contained about 4.5 million litres of gasoline, was directly targeted, resulting in a severe fire before the tank completely collapsed. The NOC said the attack followed drone strikes on a water desalination plant at the refinery on Sunday and on a naphtha reservoir on Saturday.

The incidents brought the number of reported drone attacks against oil assets in Zawiya to three over Sunday and Monday. The NOC declared a maximum emergency and warned that if these attacks continue, it will have to declare a state of force and suspend operations at the refinery entirely. A force majeure declaration at Libya's largest operating refinery would immediately disrupt domestic fuel supply across western Libya and send a direct signal to global oil markets already unsettled by the Iran war and Red Sea shipping disruptions.

The Context Behind the Attacks

The attacks come as tensions are rising between the government of western Libya and a warlord who controls the city of Zawiya. Much of western Libya is ruled by local militias loosely allied to Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah's government in Tripoli. Zawiya itself has long been a flashpoint; the refinery, export terminal, and power plant that cluster there make it both economically essential and strategically contested. Control of or access to Zawiya's energy infrastructure has been a recurring source of militia conflict for years.

A major oil refinery in Libya has been engulfed in flames after a drone strike targeted the facility, in the latest attack to hit the country. No serious injuries were reported, but Libyan National Oil Corporation says it could suspend operations if the attacks continue. pic.twitter.com/euXbm3jSQR

— BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) August 11, 2026

The attacks also coincide with a scheduled visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to both Tripoli and Benghazi, a visit whose timing alongside three consecutive days of infrastructure strikes on Libya's most critical refinery will not be lost on analysts tracking Turkey's deepening involvement in Libya's political economy.

The Structural Problem Nobody Is Solving

The House of Representatives' Energy and Natural Resources Committee condemned the attack in the strongest terms, calling it a criminal strike on a cornerstone of the national economy. The Brega Oil Company appealed to all parties to stop the fighting and stay away from oil facilities. Both statements reflect the structural reality of Libya's conflict: the institutions capable of issuing condemnations are not the same institutions capable of enforcing them.

Libya has been divided for years between rival administrations in the east and west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments, with militias controlling the economic infrastructure that nominally belongs to the state. When nobody claims responsibility for drone strikes on the country's largest refinery, it is not because the attacker is unknown to everyone. It is because accountability in Libya's current political environment carries no enforceable consequence.

The fire is out by Tuesday afternoon. The underlying conditions that lit it are not.