‘Oil, arms sales, money’: What became of Libya’s revolution?

Ten years after Libya’s Day of Revolt, Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan recalls the hope and optimism he witnessed in 2011.

When the Arab Spring protests began 10 years ago, I was covering the Pakistani army’s war against the Pakistan Taliban. It seemed a world away from what I knew as the peaceful streets of Cairo and Tripoli. In fact, when the protests began, my colleagues and I watched the news unfold on Al Jazeera in disbelief that it was happening at all. The day of February 17 – now remembered as the Day of Revolt in Libya – began small. A few gathered in Benghazi, in eastern Libya, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Then, more people started to arrive. Within a few hours, there were thousands.