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Bullet holes from recent clashes riddle an apartment building in Tripoli. Bilal Hussein/AP hide caption

Bullet holes from recent clashes riddle an apartment building in Tripoli.

There was hope in Libya and around the world for Libya after Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown four years ago.

But today, Libya is a country torn apart. There are now two competing governments, in different cities with their own parliaments and their own military.

A traveler first needs a visa from one government to land in Tripoli, then a so-called "landing permission" to fly east to the other government's territory and has to hopscotch around jihadist-controlled areas along the way.

In Tripoli, one of the capitols, an umbrella group called Libya Dawn is in charge, allied with a loose group of militias. This government wants to make its case to the world and project Libya as a safe place but the country doesn't feel safe, correspondent Leila Fadel tells NPR's Scott Simon.

"The streets empty out completely at night," Fadel says. "The main mall of the city is burned down, and honestly, you just feel scared that if something does happen, there's no one to call."

Very few diplomatic missions still operate in Tripoli, the U.S. presence is gone and the city has no centralized security force. Checkpoints are manned by masked gunmen with no clear identity, Fadel says.

In another sign of the city's slide into chaos, gunmen stormed a luxury hotel Tuesday, killing 10 people, including one American. Libya's representative to OPEC went missing Thursday; last week an Italian doctor in his 70s, who worked in a Tripoli hospital, was reported missing.

Fadel flew from Tripoli east to Baida, the unofficial second capitol, where a former general, Khalifa Hiftar, is in charge. Hiftar, who is followed by many former army officers, leads what he calls an anti-Islamist, anti-extremist operation.

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Four Years After Revolution, Libya Slides Into Chaos