This hitherto remote region, known as Fezzan, has become a "hot spot" with rival militias, militants, arms smuggling and oilfields. An excellent backgrounder, using open sources and field interviews comes from the Swiss-based Small Arms Survey:http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/filea...uous-South.pdf

They conclude:
Southern Libya is set to remain a source of regional instability for the foreseeable future, and is also likely to become a growing concern for the emerging Libyan state.
How this squares with the clear issues of control = where most Libyans live, along the coast - is not clear. The report had noted, just before this sentence:
...the Libyan government appears preoccupied with developments in the country’s northwest and east.
I was fascinated by this paragraph:
Most Tuareg soldiers of Sahelian origin stayed in southern Libya. Defectors from the Maghawir Brigade set up the first ‘revolutionary’ Tuareg armed group after Tripoli’s fall: the Ténére Brigade. The Brigade’s entry into Ubari in September 2011 was considered the town’s ‘liberation’, and the group emerged as one of the two largest units in the town. The largest was the Maghawir Brigade—renamed the Tendé Brigade—which kept its structure and its status as an official unit of the Libyan Army. According to the Tendé Brigade’s commander, the vast majority of Maghawir soldiers who escaped to Mali in 2011 have since returned to the unit. The commander cited several reasons for their return: their families had stayed in Libya, the political situation in Mali (where the MNLA was overtaken by extremist groups), and the dissipation of the threat of retaliation against Sahelian Tuareg.
If there is one takeaway it is that business is good, even if shared.