How Much of Libya Does the Islamic State Control?

The world is waking up to the threat posed by the Islamic State’s expansion in Libya over the past year. The renewed Western focus on combating the group is related to the Nov. 13 Paris attacks — although they had nothing to do with Libya — and the increasing recognition that the U.N.-brokered Libyan Political Agreement signed on Dec. 17 is, for the moment at least, unimplementable. Therefore, a national unity government able to take on the Islamic State will not be in place any time soon. But the urge to act, or to be seen acting, against the Islamic State should not be a reason to embark on a new large-scale military adventure in Libya — one that would have unpredictable results and likely worsen the situation on the ground by making the Libyan conflict harder to resolve.

Is Libya the Next Stronghold of the Islamic State?

Exactly four years after the protests that kicked off the Libyan revolution, the country has again found itself in the spotlight. On Feb. 15, a Libyan affiliate of the Islamic State released a sordid video showing the group’s militants marching a group of 21 prisoners whose only crime was being Christians, and foreigners. After a short speech from one of the jihadis, the Egyptian Coptic prisoners were simultaneously beheaded before the video panned to a scene of the blood-soaked Mediterranean Sea.

What Today’s Bloody Attack in Tripoli Means for Libya

Today a group of four gunmen attacked a hotel in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Media outlets are reporting that at least five foreigners (including one U.S. citizen) and three local guards have been killed. The attackers, wearing bulletproof vests and combat gear, detonated two car bombs outside the hotel before entering the building. At one point the gunmen took several hostages, who were later released unharmed. One of the attackers is said to have detonated an explosive vest he was wearing on the hotel’s 21st floor. (The photo above shows security forces rushing to theCorinthia Hotel shortly after the shooting began.)

In War-Torn Libya, It’s Life on the Edge

Lately Libya has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Civil war continues to rage. In the East, the army of the internationally recognized parliament in Tobruk continues its war on terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and Ansar al-Islam. In the West, the forces of the Tobruk government have allied with the powerful town of Zintan against militias loyal to the former General National Congress (GNC) and the city of Misrata.

Libya May Be Focus Of Major Rift Between US And Regional Allies

It had become clear by late August 2014 that Libya could no longer be seen as a unified state; at best it was in two parts, even with the communal leaderships of both sides professing a desire to resume national unity. By late August 2014, the country had two parliaments: one elected by the Libyan people, and the other given legitimacy solely by foreign support.  

 

The situation seemed so intractable by that point that it was possible that a full military intervention by regional states, perhaps spearheaded by Egypt, could be attempted, with the goal of stabilizing the country and eliminating the foreign-funded and foreign-armed jihadis who were using Libya as a springboard for a proposed pro-Islamist war against the current Egyptian Government.

U.S. forces seize tanker carrying oil from Libya rebel port

By Feras Bosalum and Ulf Laessing

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – U.S. special forces have seized a tanker that fled with a cargo of oil from a Libyan port, the U.S. Department of Defense said on Monday, halting an attempt by rebels to sell petroleum on the global market.

Libya ousts prime minister after ship leaves rebel-held port with illegal oil

Libya’s parliament handed a no-confidence vote to Prime Minister Ali Zeidan on Tuesday in yet another jolt to the oil-rich nation’s crumbling political stability.

Ismail Zitouny/Reuters - Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, shown in Tripoli on March 10, was ousted in a no-confidence vote March 11 by Libya’s Congress.

Libya’s elected General National Congress (GNC) ousted Zeidan a day after the government failed to stop a North Korean-flagged oil tanker from departing Libya’s eastern shore with an unauthorized $36 million cargo of crude oil.

Why Europe should step up its efforts in Libya

Mattia Toaldo 

 This week, over one million registered Libyans will elect a 60-member constituent assembly tasked with writing a new constitution in just four months. This event is hardly surrounded by enthusiasm, and the low registration figures (just one-third of those who signed up to vote for the General National Congress (GNC) two years ago) are a testimony to that.

U.S. plan for new, Western-trained Libyan force faces obstacles

Deepening divisions among Libya’s myriad armed groups are increasingly stirring conflict in the North African state. Now the United States and its allies are prepared to add a new force to the toxic mix.

ED GILES/For The Washington Post - Tanks and armored vehicles formerly belonging to the Libyan Army sit in a lot in Zintan, in the Nafusa Mountains, Libya.

U.S. officials say the hope is that theGeneral Purpose Force — a trained Libyan military organization — will start to fill the country’s festering security vacuum, initially by protecting vital government installations and the individuals struggling to make this country run. The Obama administration hopes the force eventually will form the core of a new national army.

Deadly clashes after Libya protest

At least 25 people have died in Benghazi in eastern Libya, in clashes that erupted during protests outside a militia headquarters.

Dozens more were wounded in the violence, medical officials say.

Demonstrators had gathered outside the headquarters of the Libya Shield Brigade demanding the disbanding of militias, residents say.

Libya Completes Destruction of Its Bulk Sulfur Mustard Stockpile

Libya has completed the destruction of sulfur mustard agent that was stored in bulk in transportation containers at the depot in Ruwagha, bringing the total amount of Category 1 chemical weapons destroyed by Libya to 22.3 metric tonnes (MT), or nearly 85% of the total declared stocks. Destruction of the remaining 8.82 MT of sulfur mustard that was stored in bulk at Ruwagha resumed on 20 April 2013 and by 4 May the facility completed the destruction under OPCW verification. 

Libya also completed the destruction of its remaining Category 3 weapons, in accordance with the timeline it had set in its detailed plan for the destruction of the remaining chemical weapons.  What remains now to be destroyed are about 2.45 MT of polymerised sulphur mustard and 1.6 MT of sulphur mustard loaded in projectiles, bombs and bomb cartridges, as well as 846 MT of precursor chemicals (Category 2). The destruction operations were conducted under continuous on-site monitoring by a team of OPCW inspectors.

Obama's New Libya

Remember all the hoopla the Obama administration engaged in after helping Libya's "freedom fighters" oust (and sodomize and murder) the nation's former president, Muammar Gaddafi? Remember the rationale used by Obama to justify using the U.S. military to help Libya's "opposition"? In his March 28, 2011, speech, he spoke of "our responsibilities to our fellow human beings," adding that not assisting them "would have been a betrayal of who we are."

After Gadhafi, Libyan women now press back against rising Islamists

On her way back from her job as a lecturer at a university near Tripoli, Libyan poet Aicha Almagrabi was stopped by a group of bearded militiamen. They kicked her car, beat up her driver and threatened to do the same to her. Her offense: being alone in a car with men without a male relative as a guardian.

“You have violated the law of God,” the militiamen told her, Almagrabi said.

“I said, I teach male students, so should I bring a male guardian with me to classroom?” she told The Associated Press.

In the new Libya, former prisoners guard their onetime captors

The prison is a vast, unmarked complex of beige buildings, topped with sandbags and surrounded by high, wire-rimmed walls. Most of the guards wear their beards long and unkempt in the style associated with Islamists — exactly the kind of people that Moammar Gaddafi and his intelligence chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, used to keep locked up.

Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images - Libyans are pictured in front of a mural depicting a torture scene outside Tripoli's Abu Salim prison, scene of a 1996 massacre of prisoners. The prison was notorious for torture and human rights abuses during the time of Moammar Gaddafi.

But if ever there was a picture of poetic justice in post-Gaddafi Libya, this is it. The prison’s chief, Mohamed Gweider, is a former Islamist insurgent who spent more than a decade in a Libyan prison. Two of the guards who tortured him, he says, are now his prisoners, and the biggest prize is Senussi himself.

A year after Gadhafi, can Libya tame militias?

(CNN) -- A year ago, Libyans celebrated the death of dictatorMoammar Gadhafi. I wrote then that despite enormous challenges, the country's prospects were actually pretty good. Its small, relatively well-educated population and abundant oil wealth certainly gave it a leg up on neighboring Egypt, which has to make its transition under dire economic circumstances.

Libya's path was never going to be easy, but its trajectory since Gadhafi's death has defied the worst predictions of chaos and civil war.

Libyans Oppose Possible U.S. Retaliation for Benghazi Attack

The United States is said to be weighing the option of a military strike against those found responsible for the September 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya that killed four American embassy personnel dead, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. One of the first hurdles they face is identifying who carried out the attack. The main suspects in the case, the militant Ansar al Sharia, have denied responsibility, despite witness accounts of their involvement.

Hamas Fires from Gaza an Anti-Aircraft Missile Smuggled from Libya

Zach Pontz

An anti-aircraft missile was fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza last week at an Israeli aircraft but missed its target, the Hebrew language newspaper Yediot Aharonot reported on October 16.
According to the report the missile was smuggled in from Libya. Israeli authorities have worried that the missiles could be used against the Jewish state since an estimated 1,000 of them went missing from Libya’s arsenal in the aftermath of the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
The Russian made Strela-2 surface-to-air missile system can hit aircraft flying as fast as 1,118 miles an hour and at altitudes up to 7,500 feet.

Le Monde diplomatique: Libyan democracy hijacked

The Libyans clearly indicated in July what kind of government they wanted, and who should be in it. But things are not working out that way and the security situation is deteriorating

by Patrick Haimzadeh

Nothing is going to plan in Libya. It took the death of the US ambassador in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi on 11 September to turn western media interest to the security situation, even though it has been deteriorating since the fall of Gaddafi’s regime. Back in July, the media did notice when the “liberal” National Forces Alliance led by Mahmoud Jibril beat the Muslim Brotherhood in the general election, winning 39 of the 80 seats reserved for political parties; the Brothers took 17 (1).

In Libya, contingency plan seemed to go awry during attack on U.S. outpost

Amid the chaos of the attack on the U.S. mission in this coastal city last month, neither the militia charged with guarding the compound nor Americandiplomats appeared to follow plans for what to do under assault, according to Libyan officials and guards, as well as documents found in the wreckage.

In addition, at least three Libyan guards hired to defend the compound said in interviews that they had met with American officials to express concerns about lax security, and two said they had done so on Sept. 11, the day of the attack.

Libya: We gave US three-day warning of Benghazi attack

American diplomats were warned of possible violent unrest in Benghazi three days before the killings of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three members of his team, Libyan security officials say.

The claim came as the country's interim President, Mohammed el-Megarif, said his government had information that the attack on the US consulate had been planned by an Islamist group with links to al-Qa'ida and with foreigners taking part.

However, the American ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, insisted that the killings had resulted from a demonstration against a film about the Prophet Mohamed, replicating protests in Cairo, which had been "hijacked" and got out of control.

The Independent has reported diplomatic sources who said that the threat of an attack against US interests in the region was known to the US administration 48 hours before it took place. The alert was issued by the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, but not made public. A State Department spokesman maintained: "We are not aware of any actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the US Mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent."