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Libya's future looked promising after its dictator was overthrown nearly three years ago.

But its recent history has been chaotic, with a succession of weak prime ministers at the mercy of militias more loyal to regions, ideologies and individuals rather than to a central government in Tripoli.

In recent days, however, a new would-be savior, Gen. Khalifa Hifter, has been gathering support from secular forces and, it appears, from the governments of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

On Wednesday, the United States ambassador to Libya, Deborah Jones, appeared to endorse Hifter, a defector from Moammar Gadhafi's army who spent 20 years in northern Virginia.

"I am not going to come out and condemn blanketly what he did," she told an audience at the Stimson Center in Washington.

Hifter's forces, who have battled militant Islamists in eastern Libya and stormed the parliament in Tripoli last weekend, are "going after very specific groups ... on our list of terrorists," Jones said.

Among the targets is Ansar al-Sharia, a group recently put on the U.S. State Department's terrorist list. It is believed responsible for the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in 2012 that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

But Hifter is also going after more moderate Islamists who dominate Libya's weak parliament, the General National Congress.

After its building was ransacked on Sunday, the congress -- attacked in another location when it tried to meet Tuesday -- has now agreed to dissolve and allow elections for a new body at the end of next month.

Hifter's anti-Islamic agenda fits with the views of Egypt's military-run government, which is about to anoint former army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sissi as president in barely contested elections next week.

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Libya: Can Anyone Save Libya?