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wmulnea

Strife in Libya Could Presage Long Civil War - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • Salah Badi, an ultraconservative Islamist and former lawmaker from the coastal city of Misurata.
  • Mr. Badi’s assault on Libya’s main international airport has now drawn the country’s fractious militias, tribes and towns into a single national conflagration that threatens to become a prolonged civil war. Both sides see the fight as part of a larger regional struggle, fraught with the risks of a return to repressive authoritarianism or a slide toward Islamist extremism.
  • the violence threatens to turn Libya into a pocket of chaos destabilizing North Africa for years to come.
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  • Ansar al-Shariah, the hard-line Islamist group involved in the assault on the American diplomatic Mission in Benghazi in 2012
  • Their opponents, including the militias stocked with former Qaddafi soldiers
  • The ideological differences are blurry at best: both sides publicly profess a similar conservative but democratic vision.
  • an escalating war among its patchwork of rival cities and tribes.
  • Motorists wait in lines stretching more than three miles at shuttered gas stations, waiting for them to open. Food prices are soaring, uncollected garbage is piling up in the streets and bicycles, once unheard-of, are increasingly common.
  • Tripoli, the capital and the main prize, has become a battleground
  • The fighting has destroyed the airport
  • Constant shelling between rival militias has leveled blocks
  • Storage tanks holding about 25 million gallons of fuel have burned unchecked for a month
  • with daily blackouts sometimes lasting more than 12 hours.
  • many Libyans despaired of any resolution
  • In Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, the fighting has closed both its airport and seaport, strangling the city.
  • the rush toward war is also lifting the fortunes of the Islamist extremists of Ansar al-Shariah, the Benghazi militant group.
  • The United Nations, the United States and the other Western powers have withdrawn their diplomats and closed their missions
  • “We cannot care more than you do,” the British ambassador, Michael Aron, wrote
  • Until now, a rough balance of power among local brigades had preserved a kind of equilibrium, if not stability
  • the transitional government scarcely existed outside of the luxury hotels where its officials gathered, no other force was strong enough to dominate. No single interest divided the competing cities and factions.
  • But that semblance of unity is now in tatters, and with it the hope that nonviolent negotiations might settle the competition for power and, implicitly, Libya’s oil.
  • In May, a renegade former general, Khalifa Hifter, declared that he would seize power by force to purge Libya of Islamists, beginning in Benghazi. He vowed to eradicate the hard-line Islamists of Ansar al-Shariah, blamed for a long series of bombings and assassinations.
  • General Hifter also pledged to close the Parliament and arrest moderate Islamist members
  • he has mustered a small fleet of helicopters and warplanes that have bombed rival bases around Benghazi, a steep escalation of the violence.
  • moderate Islamists and other brigades who had distanced themselves from Ansar al-Shariah began closing ranks, welcoming the group into a newly formed council of “revolutionary” militias
  • a broad alliance of Benghazi militias that now includes Ansar al-Shariah issued a defiant statement denouncing relative moderates like the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. “We will not accept the project of democracy, secular parties, nor the parties that falsely claim the Islamic cause,”
  • the general’s blitz has now stalled, it polarized the country, drawing alarms from some cities and tribes but applause from others.
  • the loudest applause came from the western mountain town of Zintan, where local militia leaders had recruited hundreds of former Qaddafi soldiers into special brigades
  • the rival coastal city of Misurata, where militias have allied with the Islamists in political battles and jostled with the Zintanis for influence in the capital
  • the Misurata and Islamist militias developed a reputation for besieging government buildings and kidnapping high officials to try to pressure the Parliament. But in recent months the Zintanis and their anti-Islamist allies have stormed the Parliament and kidnapped senior lawmakers as well.
  • the newly elected Parliament, led at first, on a seniority basis, by a member supportive of Mr. Hifter, announced plans to convene in Tobruk, an eastern city under the general’s control.
  • About 30 members, most of them Islamists or Misuratans, refused to attend,
  • Tripoli’s backup airport, under the control of an Islamist militia, has cut off flights to Tobruk, even blocking a trip by the prime minister.
  • a spokesman for the old disbanded Parliament, favored by the Islamists and Misuratans, declared that it would reconvene in Tripoli
  • In Tobruk, a spokesman for the new Parliament declared that the Islamist- and Misuratan-allied militias were terrorists, suggesting that Libya might soon have two legislatures with competing armies
  • Each side has the support of competing satellite television networks financed and, often, broadcast from abroad, typically from Qatar for the Islamists and from the United Arab Emirates for their foes.
  • Hassan Tatanaki, a Libyan-born business mogul who owns one of the anti-Islamist satellite networks, speaking in an interview from an office in the Emirates. “We are in a state of war and this is no time for compromise.”
  • Fighters and tribes who fought one another during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi are now coming together on the same side of the new fight, especially with the Zintanis against the Islamists. Some former Qaddafi officers who had fled Libya are even coming back to take up arms again.
  • “It is not pro- or anti-Qaddafi any more — it is about Libya,” said a former Qaddafi officer in a military uniform
  • Beneath the battle against “extremists,” he said, was an even deeper, ethnic struggle: the tribes of Arab descent, like the Zintanis, against those of Berber, Circassian or Turkish ancestry, like the Misuratis. “The victory will be for the Arab tribes,”
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    Article explains the civil war that is erupting in Libya. Islamist extremists are trying to take over the country and towns and tribes of Libya are choosing sides. Tripoli has been the biggest battle ground and its airport was destroyed.
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    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
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    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
allieggg

Benghazi declared 'Islamic emirate' by militants - 0 views

  • Libya’s Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sharia has said that it seized complete control of Benghazi late on Wednesday, declaring the city an “Islamic emirate,”
  • Ansar al-Sharia is blacklisted by the United States over its alleged role in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, eastern Libya.
  • Khalifa Haftar, a retired, renegade former army general who earlier this year launched a self-declared campaign to clear the city of Islamist militants, denied the group’s claims.
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  • “The national Libyan army is in control of Benghazi and only withdrew from certain positions for tactical reasons,” Haftar told Al Arabiya News Channel.
  • Ansar al-Sharia’s declaration comes a month after jihadist militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) announced an “Islamic caliphate” over their territory.
  • The extent of recent hostilities has increased Western worries that Libya is sliding toward becoming a failed state and may once again go to war.
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    This article conveys that AS has claimed Benghazi as an Islamic Emirate. While Haftar argues that only certain positions are under Islamic occupation, but the fact that they control the whole city is something he denies. 
malbasr

Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis denies pledging allegiance to ISIS - Daily News Egypt - 0 views

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    An unsubstantiated statement was released Monday affirming that Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis (ABM) was pledging loyalty to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham (ISIS), stating that the group chose Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, known as the leader of ISIS, as its leader.
malbasr

Sinai-Based Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis Swears Allegiance To ISIS A Week After Denying Links - 0 views

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    Less than a week after denying reports that it had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, militants of the Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, or ABM, released an audio clip late on Sunday, declaring their support for ISIS, according to media reports. The nine-minute clip was posted on a Twitter account claiming to be ABM's official account.
malbasr

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis - 0 views

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    According to intelligence reports, the group is thought to have around 1,000 members, many of whom may have operated in other jihadi groups in the past. The group is one of the strongest and best coordinated in Egypt, and is in possession of advanced weaponry, including man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), rocket-propelled grenades, and Grad rockets.
allieggg

Mapping Libya's armed groups - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • Haftar accuses Congress of allowing "terrorists" to flourish in Libya and has vowed to "wipe them out", gaining support from much of the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. Other militias have lined up to oppose him, insisting his attacks amount to a "coup".
  • 1. National Army
  • 2. Regular forces
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  • re-formed to help fight in the uprising against Gaddafi in 2011.
  • composed of non-Islamist fighters and former soldiers
  • Haftar used it to launch Operation Libyan Dignity on May 16, saying his mission was to dissolve the General National Congress, which he labelled Islamist, and to destroy "terrorists" he said Congress had allowed to establish bases in Libya.
  • National Army is a nationalist armed group controlled by Khalifa Haftar, rather than Libya’s national army.
  • small army and air force have mostly defected to Haftar. Libya’s armed forces fought on both Gaddafi and the rebel side in the 2011 uprising. Since then, the army has been rebuilding, with most of its units in training.
  • fighting a tit-for-tat battle against Islamist militias for more than a year.
  • 3. Zintan
  • Zintan's militias are the second most powerful armed force in Libya, after Misrata, and based in the Nafusa mountains 144km southwest of Tripoli.
  • regard themselves as opponents of both Congress and Islamists.
  • Zintan formed one of the three fronts in the uprising and by the end of that uprising, Zintan brigades surged into Tripoli, with several maintaining bases in the city and holding the international airport.
  • 2. Ansar al-Sharia
  • 1. LROR 
  • Libyan Revolutionary Operations Room was formed in 2013 as the headquarters of the Libya Shield, an alliance of pro-Congress militias.
  • accused by opponents of being Islamist,
  • LROR led a powerful Shield force to Tripoli last year to defend Congress.
  • 3. Misrata
  • With strong affiliations with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party, LROR will have much to lose if Haftar takes power.
  • dedicated to establishing a caliphate in Libya
  • The US blamed Ansar al-Sharia for the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi that saw the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in 2012.
  • On May 18, two days after Hiftar’s forces attacked Benghazi, two Zintan militias stormed the national congress building in Tripoli.
  • Misrata’s 235 militia brigades are collectively the most powerful single force in Libya, fighting through a six-month siege during the uprising.
  • They are equipped with heavy weapons, tanks and truck-launched rockets and have the power to be a decisive force in any struggle between Haftar and Islamist forces.
  • Many Misratan leaders back the Islamists in Congress, and Misratan brigades once formed a key part of the Libya Shield force in Tripoli.
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    After the ousting of the Gaddafi regime the country pivoted into civil chaos. Because of the deficiency of structure and state autonomy, armed militias have become the dominant force in determining Libya's future governmental system. While the UN has internationally recognized the NTC as the interim government to ultimately turn the country into a democratic one, militias have taken things into their own hands tipping the country towards the brink of civil war. General Khalifa Haftar launched his Operation Dignity campaign accusing congress of allowing terrorists flourish in Libya and vowed to wipe them out, gaining much support from the regular armed forces and nationalist militias. The opposition to Haftar insist that his attacks are aiming for a military coup. This article was helpful in highlighting the armed groups and dividing them by Pro-Haftar and Pro-Congress sections. 
malbasr

Profile: Egypt's militant Ansar Beit al-Maqdis group - 0 views

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    Al-Qaeda-inspired militant organisation Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Champions of Jerusalem) has claimed responsibility for the 24 January bomb attack on the police headquarters in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Initially, the group was known for launching attacks on Israeli targets and interests, but after the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, it has started directing its violence against the Egyptian army and police.
wmulnea

Profile: Libya's Ansar al-Sharia - BBC News - 0 views

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    Describes the islamist group Ansar al-Sharia.
malbasr

Egypt jihadist group releases video of beheadings - 1 views

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    Cairo (AFP) - An Egyptian jihadist group released a video Sunday showing the execution of four men, including three being beheaded, accused of spying for the army and for Israel's Mossad intelligence service. It is the second time such gruesome footage has been released by Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), the deadliest militant group based in Egypt's insurgency-hit Sinai region.
micklethwait

Libya: Where are the dividing lines? - Middle East - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

  • The House moved to Tobruk after armed groups supportive of the General National Congress began to overrun the capital.
  • Libya's new parliament, dominated by self-styled secular and nationalist candidates, was formed after the heavy defeat of Islamist candidates in June elections.
  • In the House of Representatives camp, many figures have come together in opposition to the contentious political isolation law, which banned anyone involved with the former regime from political participation.
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  • Errishi told Al Jazeera that oil revenues pass through the country's central bank. With members of Libya Dawn guarding the gates to the central bank, Errishi added that "the central bank is controlled by whomever is controlling Tripoli".
  • The UAE, which is home to Mahmoud Jibril, a leading politician opposed to Libya's Islamist groups, has been accused by the US of bombing sites held by Misrata forces with the help of Egypt.
  • t has also been alleged that Qatar, which plays host to Ali Salabi, a leading spiritual figure with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, has provided weapons and support to Brotherhood-affiliated groups battling former general Haftar.
  • With the displacement of 100,000 people due to fighting in Tripoli and Benghazi, however, the Libya crisis may not yet have taken its worst turn. "If we see more brigades going to one side over the other," said researcher Hamedi, "this will lead to civil war. The role of the regional environment is to help the domestic equation reach a deal."
    • micklethwait
       
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    Due to Libya's lack of institutional structure and weak centralized government, rival militia violence and clashes have created constant chaos leading the country towards another civil war. After the fall of Qaddafi, who obliterated institutions necessary for a functional government, Libya has been unable to manage the state. The National Transitional Council, which replaced the Qaddafi Regime, turned into the General National Congress and was given 18 months to form a democratic constitution. When the deadline passed the constitution was incomplete, which forced Congress to organize elections to a new House of Representatives. The former GNC members declared a new self proclaimed GNC, electing Omar al-Hasi as their prime minister. The new GNC is not recognized by Libya's parliament nor is it by the international community. Al Jazeera says the country literally has two parliaments and two governments, creating inconceivable instability throughout the state. The newly elected House has moved to Tobruk after armed islamic GNC militia groups overran the capital, seizing control over the major institutions in Tripoli. Due to this lack of a functional government, the rest of the state has turned to chaos. After the civil war, anti and pro Qaddafi forces branched into militias striving for power. Without a working state and government, militias had to rely on themselves to provide security, and really have no incentive to give up arms and no true government to be a part of. General Khalifa Hifter, a former Qaddafi general who later joined the Libyan rebel army in 2011, formed an anti-militia militia, targeting islamist militias like Ansar al-Sharia. Hifter is not affiliated with either of the governments, but rather strives for a military government, and supreme control of the armed forces.
fcastro2

Syria keen on Russian expansion in Middle East - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views

  • Syria has called on its Russian ally to expand in the Middle East, by expanding its small pier in the city of Tartus and turning it into a base
  • This has coincided with Saudi Arabia leading a coalition against Ansar Allah in Yemen, with a cover by the United States
  • meeting with a group of Russian journalists March 27, and in response to a question on Damascus’ desire to see a wider Russian activity in the Middle East, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he certainly welcomes “any expansion of Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, precisely on the Syrian shores and ports.
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  • Assad said: “The Russian presence in different parts of the world, including the Eastern Mediterranean and the Syrian port of Tartus, is very necessary, in order to create a sort of balance, which the world has lost after the dissolution of the Soviet Union more than 20 years ago.
  • Syrian president welcomed the Russian presence in his country and the region. “For us, the stronger this presence is in our region, the better it is for stability [in the region], because Russia is assuming an important role in world stability,”
  • Syrian nod is only a repetition of a former call made under the rule of late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, who saw that the presence of a Russian military representation in Syria in the Mediterranean region contributes to the promotion of the idea of “the balance of terror” against Israel and the United States
  • The talk was, however, halted, until the last two years, when an actual need to promote Russian presence in the Mediterranean emerged in light of the reignition of the Cold War.
  • deployment of missile systems on the Mediterranean coast, as a sort of “symbolic deterrence.” The rumors were repeated as the NATO missile defense project was announced, which was supposed to be deployed in different countries, including Turkey and other countries bordering Russia
  • e US invasion of Iraq, as the US desire to change the face of the Middle East seemed free of any rational considerations. Assad made several visits to Moscow, and although this has not been publicly mentioned, Syrian diplomats and officials stressed to As-Safir that Syria expressed its desire to expand the Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, particularly through Tartus, so that it turns into a military presence with limited standards
  • , Russia and Syria signed the biggest deal of its kind to explore oil in the Syrian waters, which covers a 2,190 square-kilometer surface area, and to achieve economic ambitions, namely extracting 2.5 billion barrels of oil and 8.5 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, the oil and gas magazine said back then
  • is understandable, without neglecting the importance of other political and military issue
  • “any decision to modernize the infrastructure of the Russian Material-Technical Support Point in Tartus can only be made after a political decision is taken in this regard, in coordination with the Syrian side.” He explained that any modernization should “take into account the political and military situation in the Mediterranean region,” and therefore “it will include the promotion of all sorts of protection in the facility, including surface-to-air missiles and anti-riots weapons, and will be in coordination with the Syrian side.”
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    Syria is determined to keep Russia in the loop when it comes to its presence in the Middle East. As the United States increases its presence so to those Russia and Syria claims that they encourage Russian presence solely to "keep the balance" in the Middle East. 
wmulnea

Islamic State gains Libya foothold - BBC News - 0 views

  • "It is a failed state. Unlike other countries in the region, it does not have a semblance of government. This makes it the most vulnerable,"
  • Moreover, Libya is rich in oil and, earlier this month, gunmen claiming to represent IS raided a French-run oil facility in al-Mabruk, south of Sirte city,
  • many IS-aligned fighters collect salaries from the Libyan state," Jason Pack, a researcher in Libyan history at the UK's Cambridge University, told the BBC.
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  • Mr Pack points out that the country has three main power blocks: Libya Dawn (a mixture of Islamist and non-Islamist militias allied with the Tripoli-based government), Operation Dignity (led by forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar and allied with the internationally recognised government based in the eastern city of Tobruk) and Jihadist groups (which include IS, al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia - the most powerful of them). "There is a civil war between the two main groups [Libya Dawn and Operation Dignity]. The jihadists act as spoilers," Mr Pack says.
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    BBC discusses the effect of IS and the current political state of Libya.
allieggg

Libya has become the latest Isil conquest - Telegraph - 0 views

  • If the conditions remain unchallenged and, hence, unchanged, it will turn into another Syria or Iraq.
  • Nowhere is this threat more profound than with the rise of radical Islam in Libya
  • The ongoing low-level insurgency in Benghazi is driven by two factors. The first is the radical Islamist ideology of certain groups that refuse to recognise the modern state and its institutions. For example, according to the leader of AS’s Benghazi branch, Mohammed al-Zahawi, his group will not disarm and demobilise until its version of sharia is imposed. The realisation of such an Islamic state constitutes the group’s main aim. In other words, it is the nature of their Jihad.
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  • The second reason is the Islamists’ history with the state security forces. During the 1990s, Muammar Gaddafi unleashed a crackdown on all expressions of Islamism, which saw thousands of youths arrested and jailed as political prisoners. Many were incarcerated in the notorious Abu-Saleem prison. Today’s rejection of state institutions has its roots in that brutality.
  • However, Benghazi is not the only Islamist stronghold in Libya: the city of Derna, which has historically been a strong recruiting ground for Jihadi fighters to Afghanistan, Iraq, and more recently Syria, is of serious concern
  • Derna’s Shura Council of Islamic Youth and Ansar al-Sharia have decided to declare Derna an “Islamic emirate” and publicly announce their allegiance to ISIL and its leader and so called “Caliphate” of Abu Baker al-Baghdadi. This means that ISIL now has its terrorist tentacles in Libya.
  • If the international community continues to overlook the current Libyan crisis, the country is likely to become an incubator of militant Islamist groups.
  • In addition to a military response, however, we need a holistic and proactive approach that focuses on achieving reconciliation and stability. This involves forcing all rival political parties to the negotiation table to agree that a newly elected parliament is the sole representative body in the country.
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    This article basically accentuates the driving factors to the ongoing insurgency of ISIL in Libya and how the threat is even more extreme than that of Iraq and Syria. One is the Islamist ideology in itself, rejecting any form of a modern state and the institutions that accompany its success. For example in Libya the leader of the AS branch declares that his militants will not disarm or demobilize until sharia law is imposed. Second, during Gaddafi's rule he unleashed a crackdown on all Islamic expression. The brutality shown towards Islamic groups during this time has fueled their resentment towards sectarian rule and has urged them to push for the rejection of state institutions even more so. The article explains how Islamic groups have claimed power in both Benghazi and Derna, the latter being the historic recruiting ground for Jihad fighters to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The author makes it clear that both military and diplomatic force from the international community is crucial for the reconciliation of security.
mpatel5

Egypt militants pledge loyalty to IS - 1 views

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    A jihadist group which has carried out a series of attacks on security forces in Egypt's Sinai peninsula has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS). Ansar Beit al-Maqdis announced the move on a Twitter account in Arabic, saying IS promised "a new dawn raising the banner of monotheism".
malbasr

"Supporters of Jerusalem" claim responsibility for latest pipeline bombing - Daily News... - 0 views

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    Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, or "Supporters of Jerusalem," claimed responsibility for the Sunday attack on the Egyptian-Israeli gas pipeline. "We bombed the gas stations and pipelines taking gas to the Zionist entity," said a member of the group in video posted on YouTube. The man was wearing camouflage and his face was blurred as he spoke into the camera.
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