Category Archives: Libya

Egypt, the UAE and Arab Military Intervention in Libya

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Andrew McGregor

September 5, 2014

A pair of recent airstrikes against Islamist-held targets in the Libyan capital of Tripoli have raised questions about Arab military intervention in Libya after reports emerged claiming the strikes were conducted by United Arab Emirates (UAE) aircraft using Egyptian airbases. The first strike, on August 17, hit up to a dozen sites in Tripoli held by the Misratan militia and their Islamist allies, killing six people and destroying a small arms depot. A second wave of attacks on August 23, struck numerous military targets shortly before dawn in southern Tripoli, but failed to prevent the Islamist-allied Libyan Shield militia (dominated by Qatari-backed Misratan fighters and allied to the Muslim Brotherhood and Ansar al-Shari’a) from seizing Tripoli’s airport and most of the capital only hours later (Middle East Monitor, August 27; New York Times, August 25).

UAE FighterUAE F-16 Fighter Jet

Though anti-Islamist commander General Khalifa Haftar attempted to claim responsibility for the attacks, their precision, the distance covered by the aircraft and the night operations all precluded the participation of Haftar’s small air element. The U.S. State Department initially said the airstrikes were conducted by UAE aircraft operating from an Egyptian airbase, but later issued a type of ambiguous retraction that suggested further questions should be addressed to the parties involved (Ayat al-Tawy, August 29; Ahram Online [Cairo], August 29). The participation of Egypt and the UAE was confirmed, however, by Pentagon spokesman Admiral John Kirby (Financial Times, August 21; Reuters, August 26). On August 26, a U.S. official said Washington was aware the UAE and Egypt were preparing an attack on Tripoli, but had warned against carrying out the operation (AP, August 26). When the two Arab militaries took the decision to strike Tripoli, they failed to inform their long-time military patron, possibly marking some dissatisfaction with Washington’s reluctance to take more decisive action in Libya and elsewhere.

An Arab Military Solution?

The apparent failure of General Haftar’s “Operation Dignity” has led his Arab backers in Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia to consider more direct approaches to re-establishing security in Libya, where both of the nation’s major cities (Tripoli and Benghazi) have been effectively seized by Islamist militias, forcing the national government to move to Tobruk, close to the border with Egypt.

Rumors of an Algerian-Egyptian invasion of Libya circulated throughout August, though a prolonged Algerian military intervention would risk inflaming social and economic tensions within Algeria (Middle East Eye, August 21). The lack of military cooperation between Algeria and Egypt would also seem to argue against a joint operation.

Qatar supports the Islamist faction in Libya and hosts leading Islamist politician Ali Muhammad al-Salabi, an associate of former Libyan Islamic Fighting Group commander Abd al-Hakim Belhadj, now a prominent Islamist militia commander in Tripoli. Both the Algerian and Egyptian militaries are involved in ongoing counter-terrorism campaigns; the question is whether these nations view Libya as an unwanted second front or as an integral part of a wider international anti-terrorist campaign.

The UAE Adopts a More Muscular Foreign Policy

The UAE’s approach to regional security has been described by UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr. Anwar Gargash:

Arab affairs should be settled within the framework of the Arab world because the Arab arena then becomes [accessible] to many regional players. I think this is a risk that threatens all Arab countries… There must be strong and effective police and military forces because not every threat faced by countries is international. There are many regional challenges so we should have the potential to face these threats. As [much as] the UAE and other countries need regional allies, we have to start with our own self-power and potential (The National [Abu Dhabi], March 31).

Gargash later said that allegations of UAE interference in Libyan affairs were merely an attempt to divert attention from Libya’s parliamentary elections, in which the Islamists fared poorly: “The people have spotted [the Islamists’] failure and recognized their lies. Disregarding the results of the Libyan parliamentary election is nothing but an indication of the isolation of the group, which is seeking a way out of their segregation, and [to] justify their mismanagement… Since their seven percent does not form a majority, Islamists in Libya resorted to violence and spread chaos across the country” (Khaleej Times [Dubai], August 27).

UAE pilots certainly know the way to Tripoli; during the NATO-led intervention in 2011, the UAE Air Force (UAEAF) deployed six F-16s and six Mirage fighter jets during the anti-Qaddafi campaign (AP, April 27). The UAE has used some of its considerable oil wealth to obtain a modern and well-trained air arm to help ensure the security of the Emirates in an increasingly unstable region. Many of the pilots and technicians are Pakistani ex-servicemen serving the UAE on private contracts. With the Mirage jets being phased out in favor of American-built F-16s, many of the pilots are not trained in the United States or by American trainers in the UAE. The UAE is also one of the few nations in the region to have mid-air refueling capabilities for long-distance operations thanks to its recent purchase of three Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transports (MRTT). In recent years, the UAE has been improving its military capabilities to take a greater role in foreign affairs (particularly in the Arab world) and regional counter-terrorism efforts under the direction of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayid al-Nahyan.

The Egyptian Perspective

Although a cursory examination of a map of North Africa would seem to indicate Libya and Egypt are close neighbors, in reality, their interaction has been historically limited by distance, topography and culture. A brief 1977 border war that ended in disaster for Mu’ammar Qaddafi’s poorly trained Libyan forces marked the last military encounter of any significance between the two nations.

UAE - Egypt Libya Border WarLibyan Troops Celebrate Downing of an Egyptian Fighter by Libyan Mirage Jets during the 1977 Border War. (Tom Cooper Collection)

Egyptian president Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi told a U.S. congressional delegation on August 29 that Egypt respected Libyan internal affairs, but noted that democracies cannot be built on ruins: “Despite Egypt being one of the most harmed parties from the deteriorating political and security situation in Libya, it is committed to non-interference in internal Libyan affairs” (Egypt State Information Service, August 29; Ahram Online [Cairo], August 29). While Egypt has been reluctant to admit any involvement in the airstrikes, there are reports that its newly formed Rapid Intervention Force, a group of some 10,000 commandos with airborne capability dedicated to counter-terrorism operations, has been involved in intelligence collecting operations in eastern Libya focused on Ansar al-Shari’a activities (AP, August 26; Cairo Post, May 8; al-Bawaba, March 30).

Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry was adamant that Egypt was not involved in “any military activity and does not have any military presence on Libyan territories,” all of which might be technically true if Egypt only provided use of an air base to a UAEAF mission (al-Jazeera, August 26). UAE officials were more reticent, noting at first only that the Emirati authorities had “no reaction” to reports of UAEAF activity in Libya (al-Jazeera, August 26).

The day after the attack, the Egyptian and Libyan Foreign Ministers announced a bilateral initiative to restore security in Libya without military intervention by non-Arab (i.e. Western) nations. The plan calls for the disarmament of Libya’s militias with the aid of regional and international partners, but depends largely on commitments from international arms suppliers to halt sales to the militias after disarmament. Though well-intended, neither the Egyptian nor Libyan armed forces have the ability or will to further this initiative (Ahram Online [Cairo], August 25).

Egypt’s Concerns

The political chaos in neighboring Libya is the source of a number of security concerns being examined by Cairo. These include:

  • Contacts and arms trading between Libyan Islamists and Salafi-Jihadist groups operating in the Sinai;
  • Harassment and assaults on Egyptian nationals working in Libya could lead to the return of hundreds of thousands of workers who would become reliant on a state already experiencing its own economic and unemployment crises for their welfare. Other economic impacts have been slight so far, as there is little trade between Libya and Egypt and only a small degree of Egyptian investment in Libya;
  • The absence of state control over Libyan borders, seaports and airports raises a host of security concerns;
  • New armed Islamist groups operating in the greater Cairo region and the Nile Valley (possibly including returnees from the fighting in Syria and Iraq) may seek arms supplies from Libya transported over the largely defenseless southern region of the border between Libya and Egypt. Gunmen and smugglers operate openly in the region and in July attacked an Egyptian base for counter-smuggling operations in the western desert oasis of Farafra (Wadi al-Jadid Governorate), killing 22 soldiers. Securing this region with some type of permanent military presence would require an expensive and logistically difficult deployment of officers and troops, most of whom (despite Arab stereotypes) have little to no experience of the desert and share a great aversion to serving in the Libyan desert in any prolonged capacity;
  • Libya could provide a rallying point for Egyptian jihadists, likely in the newly-declared “Islamic Emirate of Benghazi” (see Terrorism Monitor, August 7). Though the anti-Sisi “Free Egyptian Army” with supposed Qatari-Turkish-Iranian backing appears to have a greater presence in the virtual world than the battlefield, a small number of Egyptian extremists have taken refuge in Libya and could attempt to form new armed opposition groups there (al-Ahram Weekly [Cairo], April 24; al-Akhbar [Beirut], April 10). Working in favor of the Egyptian government is the relative difficulty of mounting operations of any size in Egypt from Libyan bases.

Egyptian Options

Among the options available to Egypt to impose a political/security solution in Libya are the following:

  • An air campaign of limited or sporadic intensity targeting Islamist bases in Libya;
  • Securing the length of its 700 mile border with Libya (a near physical and financial impossibility aggravated by the lack of credible partners on the Libyan side);
  • A limited incursion into Libya establishing a secured buffer zone in the northern reaches of the Libyan-Egyptian border (a move of dubious international legality that would invite Islamist attacks, inflame relations with some Arab nations and drain Egyptian resources better used in the Sinai);
  • A broad multi-year military occupation (with or without allied Arab contingents) designed to disarm militias and support a new government that is likely to be viewed in many quarters as an Egyptian proxy (diplomatically provocative, militarily risky and financially draining);
  • Covert military/logistical/intelligence support for new anti-Islamist factions (created with the help of Egyptian military intelligence) or existing militias. This has been the Egyptian strategy so far, but its support for the “National Libyan Army” forces of Khalifa Haftar and their allies has failed to yield results so far. Cairo may look elsewhere in Libya for someone with greater credibility in Libya to lead anti-Islamist forces – Haftar’s long American exile and CIA associations have worked against him in Libya;
  • Training and arming Libyan nationals to form a new national Libyan army with some limited political direction from Cairo. According to Libyan Army chief-of-staff Major-General Abdul Razzaq al-Nazhuri, Egypt has offered military training for Libya’s new army, an important consideration given that both NATO and the United States have backed off from earlier pledges to provide training due to the continuing unrest in Libya (Stars and Stripes, August 28);
  • Continuing its policy of cultivating tribal elites in the border region for intelligence gathering and counter-terrorist operations. These elements will not work for free, however; they are seeking development projects and legal concessions in return for their cooperation. The tribes that straddle the modern border now control much of the smuggling of arms and other contraband from Libya to Egypt.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood responded to the airstrikes by issuing a statement warning of the “disastrous consequences” of an intervention in Libya and calling for the expulsion of Khalifa Haftar from his Egyptian residence:

Forcing the Egyptian army into this war to achieve foreign powers’ goals and agendas represents the biggest threat to Egypt’s national security and tarnishes the reputation of the Egyptian army, making it look like a group of mercenaries. It also weakens its capabilities when it comes to face real enemies, which brings to mind painful memories of the intervention of the Egyptian army in the war in Yemen, which later led to a disastrous defeat in 1967 in the war against the Zionist entity [i.e. Israel] (Ikhwanweb [Cairo], August 24).

Libya’s branch of the Brotherhood, which fared badly in the elections last June, is now setting up a rival regime in Tripoli to that of the elected parliament.

Conclusion

The lack of consensus in the Arab world regarding the direction of Libya’s future precludes military intervention by an allied force under the direction of the Arab League. Any Arab attempt to impose order in Libya with a military presence on the ground would rely overwhelmingly on forces from Egypt, the Arab world’s largest military power and Libya’s neighbor. However, there are long memories in Egypt of the nation’s last major foreign adventure, the disastrous 1962-1967 Egyptian military intervention in Yemen, which disrupted the Arab nationalist movement, diminished Egyptian influence and weakened its military in the lead-up to the 1967 war with Israel. [1]

The turmoil in Libya strengthens al-Sisi’s posture as the Egyptian and even regional defender of Arabs from religious-political extremism, giving him the freedom to impose stricter security regimes designed to eliminate the Islamist opposition. The question now is whether Qatar will step up its military support of Libya’s Islamists to counter the UAE’s and Egypt’s support of anti-Islamist factions. The August airstrikes on Tripoli suggest that this distant arena is gradually becoming a battleground in the struggle between pro-Islamist states such as Qatar and Turkey and their more conservative opponents – the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Note

  1. See Andrew McGregor, A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War, Praeger Security International, Westport CT, 2006, Chapter 19.

This article first appeared in the September 5, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Libya’s Ansar al-Shari’a Declares the Islamic Emirate of Benghazi

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Andrew McGregor
August 7, 2014

Only weeks after Sunni jihadists in Iraq declared the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate covering parts of Syria and Iraq, Libya’s Ansar al-Shari’a movement has declared an Islamic Emirate in eastern Libya after driving government forces and their allies from the city of Benghazi. The defeat of the strongest pro-government forces in eastern Libya has provided the Islamists with an impressive victory, but Ansar al-Shari’a and its allies are still struggling to obtain the support of Benghazi’s urban population and the powerful tribes dwelling in its hinterland.

The Libyan Emirate in the Modern Era

As the provinces that eventually formed modern Libya began to fall to British and French military forces following a string of defeats suffered by Italy, the colonial power in Libya, there were several abortive attempts to create a modern Emirate in eastern Libya. In anticipation of post-war independence in return for supporting the Allied cause, the Libyans agreed to the formation of a joint Tripolitanian-Cyrenaican Emirate with Sayyid Idris al-Sanusi as leader in 1940 (the third province, Fezzan, remained under French military administration from 1943 to 1951). This plan, however, began to disintegrate after liberation from Italian occupation in 1943 as the two Libyan provinces jostled for control of the new state. Sayyid Idris foresaw the emergence of Britain as the main power-broker in a post-colonial Libya (unlike the Tripolitanian leaders, who had incorrectly foreseen an Axis victory) and raised five battalions of the “Libyan Arab Force” to assist Allied operations in the North African desert campaign. A 1945 U.S. plan for a Cyrenaican emirate under British and Egyptian supervision failed to gain support, but in 1949 Britain decided unilaterally to create a Cyrenaican emirate under the leadership of Sayyid Idris, with foreign affairs, defense issues and military bases all remaining under British control. By the time independence arrived in 1951, plans for an emirate had been abandoned in favor of a federal constitutional monarchy with a bicameral parliament. [1]

Ansar al-Shari’a in Libya

The Islamist militia, established in post-revolutionary Libya in 2012, has a power-base in the eastern cities of Derna and Benghazi. It was in the latter city that the movement was deeply implicated in the September 11, 2012 attack on the American consulate. Ten days later, the group was driven from Benghazi by mass protests, but by March 2013 it was back in Benghazi, this time with a greater emphasis on providing social services to city residents.

New tensions began to arise in Benghazi in June, when General Haftar’s forces began launching attacks on armed Islamist militias in Benghazi and Derna and preliminary results of the parliamentary election revealed a massive rejection of Islamist candidates (all seats were contested on an individual rather than party basis). Afraid of being shut out of the political process, the Islamist militias in Benghazi (including Ansar al-Shari’a, the Libya Shield Brigade no. 1, the 17 February Brigade and the Rafallah Sahati Brigade) united under an umbrella structure known as the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries (Daily Star [Beirut], August 1). Many of these groups are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood stronghold in Misrata. The restructuring at first helped limit Haftar’s successes in the region before allowing the united Islamists to push back against Haftar’s outnumbered “National Army” and its allies.

In June, Ansar al-Shari’a leader Muhammad al-Zawahi reasserted his movement’s opposition to both the government and democracy in general, while warning the United States to forget about military intervention in Libya in view of America’s “despicable defeats in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia,” promising it would “face worse from Libya” (BBC, June 13).

Wanis Bu KhamadaColonel Wanis Bu Khamada

Expelling al-Sa’iqah

On July 29, Ansar al-Shari’a and its allies in the Shura Council mounted a bold attack on the Benghazi base of the pro-government al-Sa’iqah (Thunderbolt) Special Forces, an elite unit led by Colonel Wanis Bu Khamada that is allied to Libyan Major-General Khalifah Haftar, but not under his direct command. Haftar’s ongoing Operation al-Karamah (Dignity) is an attempt to eliminate Islamist militias in Libya and restore order in the lawless cities. The Islamist attack succeeded in taking the main camp of al-Sa’iqah, located in the Bu-Atni district of Benghazi.

With the capture of most of the city (excluding a part of the airport still controlled by Haftar’s forces), Ansar al-Shari’a leader Muhammad al-Zahawi declared on July 30 that “Benghazi has now become an Islamic Emirate” (Radio Tawhid, July 30; al-Jazeera, July 31). Haftar insisted that his forces had only conducted a “tactical withdrawal” from parts of Benghazi and that the Islamist claimi to control the city was “a lie”: “There is a difference between control and looting and thefts. After the Special Forces withdrew from the Special Forces’ camp, [the Islamists] tried to steal what they could steal” (al-Arabiya, July 30; July 31). Since mid-July, the Shura Council has taken five military bases in the Benghazi region, including the main Special Forces camp in Benghazi, overcoming strikes from Libyan jet-fighters and helicopters in their advance (al-Jazeera, July 31). Benghazi’s main police station was also abandoned after being shelled by Shura Council forces.

Ansar al-Shari'a FightersAnsar al-Shari’a Fighters Pose After Taking the Libyan Special Forces Base

Losses were heavy, with at least 78 soldiers killed in the assault on the base. Large quantities of arms, rockets, ammunition and even armored vehicles were seized from the stockpiles of the Special Forces, AFP/al-Akhbar [Beirut], July 30; Daily Star [Beirut], August 1). A video released soon after the battle showed Ansar al-Shari’a commander Muhammad al-Zawahi touring the battered Special Forces camp with Libyan Shield Brigade commander Wissam Bin Hamid, who declared: “We will not stop until we establish the rule of God.” [2] Bin Hamid no doubt took satisfaction in having expelled al-Sa’iqah, having been driven from his own headquarters in June 2013 by Special Forces units.

A Libyan National Army spokesman, Colonel Muhammad Hijazi, denied rumors of differences between Colonel Bu Khamada and General Haftar, adding that the withdrawal of al-Sa’iqah from its Benghazi base was “a military strategy. We are fighting against international intelligence organs like the Qatari and Turkish intelligence services” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 1).

Following the Islamist victory, Muhammad Sawwan, the leader of Libya’s Hizb al-Adala wa’l-Bina (Justice and Construction Party, the political arm of Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood), condemned Haftar’s Operation Dignity as armed interference with the political process and insists the poor showing by Islamists in parliamentary election results has nothing to do with the violence in Benghazi and Tripoli: “The parliamentary elections were held on the basis of the individual system. Therefore, talking about progress of one current and the defeat of the other is baseless” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 1).

A Libyan National Army spokesman, Colonel Muhammad Hijazi, denied rumors of differences between Colonel Bu Khamada and General Haftar, adding that the withdrawal of al-Sa’iqah from its Benghazi base was “a military strategy. We are fighting against international intelligence organs like the Qatari and Turkish intelligence services” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 1). There is a general belief in the forces allied to Haftar that the Islamists are materially and politically supported by Qatar and Turkey. However, despite the defeat, Colonel Bu Khamada insisted that his forces “still have the capacity to repel any attack on state institutions” (Al-Ahrar TV, August 2).

The Fallout

The Shura Council’s offensive forced the cancellation of a meeting of the new parliament to be held in Benghazi on August 4, forcing it to meet in Tobruk instead (BBC, July 30; AP, August 6). The new parliament immediately issued an order for an unconditional ceasefire in Benghazi and Tripoli (where similar clashes are underway) and promised, without the force to carry it out, that action would be taken against any group that failed to observe the ceasefire (Libya Herald, August 7).

While Haftar’s ground troops failed to reoccupy military facilities that had been abandoned after looting by the Islamists, his air assets launched air strikes against the compound of a Chinese construction company in Ajdabiya that had been taken over by Ansar al-Shari’a forces (Libya Herald, August 1). Haftar’s National Army has offered to protect further civilian demonstrations in Benghazi, though it is not clear how this would be possible without a presence in Benghazi (Libya Herald, August 1).

While there is some consensus that foreign jihadists are arriving in Libya in substantial numbers, exact figures are impossible to obtain. According to General Haftar, the Islamists “are aided by renegade groups like them from all around the world. Unfortunately, in the absence of a government or police, those groups use this opportunity to come from Algeria, Mali, Niger, and even elsewhere. They even come from overseas. Many of them came from Afghanistan and many other areas” (al-Arabiya, July 30).

For now, the oil-fields of eastern Libya remain in production, but as part of a much diminished national rate of 500,000 barrels per day (b.p.d.), as opposed to a normal 1.4 million b.p.d. (Reuters, July 29). Oil accounts for some 95% of state revenues in Libya.

Conclusion

Ansar al-Shari’a’s declaration of an Emirate was met with popular anger rather than acclaim, with large crowds of angry civilians taking to the streets of Benghazi. The protesters ignored a pair of warning volleys from Ansar militiamen and forced the gunmen from the Jala’a hospital it occupied in Benghazi, tearing down the black-and-white rayat al-uqab banner also used by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda and replacing it with a Libyan flag (Libya Herald, July 30). There were also reports that the demonstrators torched the home of Ansar al-Shari’a leader Muhammad al-Zahawi (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 31). The failure of forces belonging to Haftar’s Operation Dignity to capitalize on this unexpected civilian triumph allowed the Islamists to re-assert themselves in an even stronger position in Benghazi by July 31.

Haftar’s National Army, still without official recognition from the government, has managed to gain the allegiance of a number of pro-government armed groups (some of which are probably reconsidering their position at this point), but has failed to get the all-important support of Libya’s tribes, which continue to withhold their commitment to one side or the other of the ongoing conflict. For now, both Ansar al-Shari’a and Haftar’s National Army claim to be receiving new weapons, promising another round of the urban warfare that is beginning to inflict severe damage on some neighborhoods of Benghazi (Libya Herald, July 29). Unless and until General Haftar and/or the new Libyan government can bring both trained troops and the nation’s influential tribes on board with the anti-Islamist program, Libya will remain a gathering point for international jihadis and Libyan fighters returning from the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, something the defeated forces allied to the national government may find themselves powerless to prevent.

Notes

1. Alison Pargeter, Libya: The Rise and Fall of Qaddafi, Yale University Press, 2012, Chapter 1; John Oakes, Libya: The History of a Pariah State, History Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2011, Chapter 6.
2. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHUDbffJloo

This article first appeared in the August 7, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Khartoum’s Islamist Perspective on Libya’s Internal Conflict

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Andrew McGregor

June 13, 2014

Though Sudan’s shared border with Libya is relatively small and remote, it does include an ancient but still important cross-Saharan trade route that passes by Jabal Uwaynat, a small mountain complex at the meeting point of Egypt, Libya and Sudan. The route, used by commercial traffic, smugglers and human traffickers, leads to the oasis of Kufra in southeastern Libya after cutting through territory largely controlled by Tubu militias. Sudanese troops were active in securing the region during the Libyan revolution. Though Sudan has officially closed the border during the current troubles in Libya, African migrants are still being trafficked through the area on their way to the Libyan coast and a final attempt to reach Europe.

Jabal Uwaynat – Where Three Borders Meet

This overland connection and various improvements made to it during the rule of the late Libyan leader Mu’ammar Qaddafi give Libya an important commercial presence and, at times, even political influence in western Sudan’s Darfur region. Khartoum’s relations with Qaddafi’s Libya were in a constant state of flux, with the former Libyan leader pursuing various unwanted unification schemes with his larger southern neighbor. Qaddafi’s patronizing attitude irked a succession of Sudanese leaders, and when his advances were rejected, Qaddafi could quickly turn to supporting various elements of Sudan’s armed opposition. Since Qaddafi’s demise, however, Khartoum has adopted a cautious approach to the political chaos in Libya, though it is the sudden current effort of Libya’s General Khalifa Haftar to install himself as that nation’s latest strongman through “Operation Dignity” that has created alarm in Khartoum. Though Sudan’s intelligence apparatus has developed close ties with the American CIA, it is Haftar’s own association with that agency that disturbs Khartoum. Haftar is also supported by various interests in the Gulf region that are often at odds with Khartoum, which some Gulf states regard as being unduly close to Tehran.

Following the lead of newly-elected Egyptian president Field Marshal Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi, Haftar’s campaign has focused on Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamist groups such as Ansar al-Shari’a, the latter believed to have been responsible for the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Al-Sisi has even warned of the danger posed by Islamist terrorists operating out of eastern Libya, with these groups being involved in arms trafficking across the network of oases in the Egyptian part of the Libyan Desert (Tripoli Post, May 28). According to Haftar, the Islamist trend in Libya is a growing international threat:

The security problem is a major issue that has shaken our country in a frightening manner after the GNC allowed all the terrorist forces across the world to come to Libya and coexist with the Libyan people. We know that these terrorists can never coexist with the people of Libya. The Muslim Brotherhood is leading this move. They are being granted Libyan passports and are coming to our country from abroad. There is now a large group of Brothers here, and that is why our neighbors are raising questions about this situation… When terrorist operations began to take place in Egypt, and the Egyptian authorities announced that the Muslim Brotherhood were leading these [terrorist] groups, this opened the eyes of many Libyans to the true nature of the Brotherhood (al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 22).

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, Haftar named Sudan as one of the countries (along with Chad and Egypt) from which armed Islamist groups are infiltrating Libya (Washington Post, May 21). On June 7, Haftar’s expanding military forces were joined by the largely Tubu 25th Brigade (a.k.a. the Ahmad al-Sharif Brigade). The brigade regards itself as part of Libya’s regular army and controls the important al-Sarir oilfield and several other oil facilities and border points in southeastern Libya. According to brigade commander Major Ali Sida, “We have always kept away from political issues and regional divisions… We’ve joined the Operation Dignity because Libyan army members are being attacked and murdered. It’s our duty to protect ourselves and enforce law in our country” (Libya Herald, June 8). Recently resigned Tubu military leader Isa Abd al-Majid Mansur was accused of bringing Sudanese mercenaries to southeastern Libya to establish an independent Tubu state after the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, charges he denies: “We have connections here and there, but that does not mean that we bring in fighters to Libya” (al-Jazeera, May 9).

Abd al-Hakim Belhaj  (Guardian)

On May 19, Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement urging international respect for Libya’s sovereignty while calling on the Arab League, the African Union and other elements of the international community to support Libya’s “democratic transformation” (Sudan News Agency, May 20, Sudan Vision, May 21). Reports of a recent visit to Khartoum by Libyan al-Watan Party leader Abd al-Hakim Belhaj, a veteran jihadist turned politician, were quickly followed by accusations from Haftar’s Libyan National Army that Khartoum was using air assets to deliver Qatari-funded arms shipments to fighters loyal to Belhaj (Youm al-Sabe’a [Cairo], June 6; Sudan Tribune, June 6). Though Khartoum declined to comment on Belhaj’s alleged visit, a spokesman for the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) denied charges it was supplying arms to Islamist factions in Libya and pointed to the military training a number of Libyan officers are receiving at Sudan’s Karari military college and the work of joint Libyan-Sudanese border forces as proof of military cooperation between Tripoli and Khartoum (Sudan Tribune, June 9).

Though many leading figures in the military-Islamist coalition that rules Sudan have their political origins in Sudan’s Ikhwan movement (an independent Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood), Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Ali Karti, has taken steps to distance the regime from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates in the Gulf states: “Some people in the Gulf states believe that we have feelings towards the Muslim Brotherhood in any country in the Gulf or even Egypt. Sudan was the first state that refused to join the Muslim Brotherhood movement.” Karti also denied reports that Qatari ruler Shaykh Tamim bin-Hamad used a recent visit to Khartoum to request Sudanese assistance in relocating fugitive Muslim Brotherhood leaders from Doha to Khartoum (al-Hayat, May 29).

The situation in Libya has been complicated by the disputed designation of Ahmad Mu’aytiq, a Misratah-based politician viewed as close to the Muslim Brotherhood, as the nation’s new Prime Minister. Misratah’s Central Shield Force militia is responsible for protecting the ruling General National Council’s facilities in Tripoli, but are at odds with the Zintan militia, which has lined up behind General Haftar and also operates in parts of Tripoli (al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 21).

The foreign relations secretary for Sudan’s influential Islamist opposition party, the Popular Congress Party (led by veteran Islamist Dr. Hassan al-Turabi after a split with the ruling National Congress Party) issued a statement in late May warning against military intervention in Libya by Sudanese, Chadian or Egyptian forces, citing the negative consequences that would follow such an intervention. While Bashir Adam Rahma insisted these nations should play a role only as “neutral reformers,” he emphasized that direct intervention by Khartoum could result in new military operations by the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and other Darfur-based rebel movements. Rahma also warned that if the enemies of political Islam triumphed in Libya, Khartoum would be the next target of “anti-Islamic” forces (Sudan Tribune, May 29). Similar suggestions appeared in a report carried by the government-connected Sudan Vision news agency on June 8. According to the report, Sudan’s border with Libya was now regarded as “unsafe,” and “will continue to be more unsafe with the rising of General Khalifa Haftar as a potential leader in his strong military campaigns against the Islamic movements in the east of Libya.” Khartoum expects that Haftar will cooperate fully with al-Sisi in Egypt in his “ruthless campaign against the Islamic Brotherhood movement” (Sudan Vision, June 8).

This article was first published in the June 13, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Khartoum Struggles to Control its Controversial “Rapid Support Forces”

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Andrew McGregor

May 30, 2014

Since independence in 1956, Sudan’s central government has formed a habit of using tribal-based (usually Arab) militias and paramilitaries to squash regional rebellions.  Usually well-armed but poorly disciplined, these groups have operated under the light hand of various security agencies willing to ignore atrocities and war crimes to re-establish central government control. Now, however, this long-standing policy has begun to backfire on the Islamist-military regime in Khartoum, with the recently formed “counter-terrorist” Rapid Support Forces (RSF) begins to operate outside the control of government authorities, creating even greater resentment against the government in Sudan’s numerous regions of unrest.

Major General Abbas Abd al-Aziz Reviews RSF Fighters

The RSF commander is Major General Abbas ‘Abd al-Aziz, a Ja’alin Arab from North Sudan and a trusted relative of President Omar al-Bashir as well as a senior member of the National Security and Intelligence Service (NISS – Jihaz al-Amn al-Watani wa’l-Mukhabarat), Sudan’s much-feared internal security organization, under whose command the RSF operates. His deputy and field commander is Muhammad Hamdan Daglo (a.k.a. Hemeti), a member of the Mahariya branch of the Northern Rizayqat of Darfur. The paramilitary of 5,000 to 6,000 men is believed to have the patronage of Sudanese Second Vice President Hassabo Muhammad ‘Abd al-Rahman, a native of Darfur and the political secretary of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). The commander of the South Kordofan-based RSF-2, Colonel Hussein Jabr al-Dar, was killed in a mid-May battle with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army Northern Command (SPLM/A-NC) near the South Kordofan capital of Kadugli (Sudan Tribune, May 24; Radio Dabanga, May 26).

A common demand of much of Sudan’s armed and political opposition is the dissolution of the RSF. The creation of a large, well-armed militia under its own command and officially tasked with “counter-terrorism” activities is an important step in entrenching itself within the larger national administration (Middle East Online, May 21).

According to General ‘Abd al-Aziz, the RSF includes in its ranks retired and experienced military men as well as recruits from various parts of the country who receive four months of training before deployment on the battlefield, including lessons on international human rights and the rights of civilians in war zones (Sudan Vision, May 29; AFP, May 21). However, there is widespread concern that former members of Darfur’s notorious Janjaweed militias implicated in serious war crimes are being brought into more formal formations such as the Border Guards and RSF to shield them from prosecution.

The leading rebel movements still active in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army of ‘Abd al-Wahid al-Nur (SLM/A-AW) and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army of Minni Minnawi (SLM/A-MM) urged the UN Security Council in April to launch an “immediate investigation of the recent escalation of genocide in Darfur by the Rapid Support Forces from February 28 this year to date” (Radio Dabanga, April 23).

NUP Leader Sadiq al-Mahdi

Two-time Sudanese president and current leader of the opposition National Umma Party (NUP) Sadiq al-Mahdi was detained and interrogated by national security prosecutors in mid-May after making public remarks critical of the RSF for its violence against civilians (the NUP has a significant power-base in Darfur) and its alleged inclusion of foreign (mostly Arab) fighters from the Central African Republic, Chad, Libya and Mali in its ranks. National Assembly speaker al-Fatih Izz al-Din even accused al-Mahdi of “treason,” saying the RSF deserved praise for its anti-insurgency operations (Radio Dabanga, May 15).  NISS charges against the former PM included “inciting the international community against Sudan” and “causing unrest among the regular troops.” Al-Mahdi responded with an allusion to President al-Bashir, noting that: “Speaking the truth is the best form of jihad when the sultan is unfair” (Radio Dabanga, May 14). It is worth noting that when al-Mahdi was in his second term as prime minister (1986-1989), he relied heavily on Baqqara (cattle-raising) Arab militias known as murahalin who committed numerous atrocities against South Sudanese Dinka tribesmen during the second civil war.

Malik Agar, chairman of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF – an umbrella group of armed opposition movements), denounced attempts to “muzzle” al-Mahdi, claiming that the RSF had “expanded their activities to the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and even North Kordofan’s al-Ubayd and its surroundings. They burn hundreds of villages and kill and displace thousands of Sudanese citizens, rape and kidnap hundreds of women and loot civilians’ property, for their systematic impoverishment” (Radio Dabanga, May 16).

Backed by field commander Muhammad Hamdan Daglo, General Abd al-Aziz held an angry press conference to respond to al-Mahdi’s charges and earlier allegations from United Nations/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) chief Muhammad ibn Chambas:

We didn’t loot. We didn’t burn any villages. We didn’t rape… It’s the rebels who are destroying water resources, burning villages and committing race-based killings. Then they try to put the blame on us (AFP, May 14).

The NISS director of operations, Major General ‘Ali al-Nasih, insists that the RSF is a highly disciplined force and part of the NISS command structure: “More than 6,000 security personnel are distributed at petroleum sites, co-deployed with the armed forces at borders and co-working with police to protect the national capital and other major towns” (Sudan Vision, May 25). The general also maintains that the paramilitary engages in such activities as public health, environmental protection and food distribution.

General ‘Abd al-Aziz has admitted that the RSF has committed some human rights violations, but described these incidents as “limited and individual” (Radio Dabanga, May 16). Such dissimulation has not impressed SPLM-N secretary-general Yasir Arman, who urged all Sudanese to “campaign against the RSF war criminals” at home and abroad: “The RSF troops are mercenaries, who do anything for material gains. This [absorption of the Janjaweed into the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF)] may tear Sudan apart by destroying the social fabric” (Radio Dabanga, May 14).

On May 19-20, heavy fighting broke out between police in the North Darfur capital of al-Fashir and Haras al-Hudud  (Border Guard) units allegedly supported by allied RSF members (both units draw heavily on former Janjaweed members) (Independent, May 20).  The paramilitaries, who are accused by local residents of looting, armed robbery, rape and drug trafficking, had clashed earlier with police in January 2013, killing two policemen, and again last April when Border Guards attempted to break into the Agricultural Bank in al-Fashir (Radio Dabanga, January 31, 2013; March 18, 2014). The former Janjaweed, who were once richly rewarded for targeting civilian populations in Darfur, have fallen victim to budget cuts forced by the separation of oil-rich South Sudan in 2011 and are eager to make up the difference at the expense of the residents of Darfur and Kordofan.  Using government-supplied arms to extort cash is nothing new to RSF field commander Muhammad Hamdan Daglo, who led a 2007 rebellion by Mahariya Border Guard irregulars demanding payment of back-wages. [1]

In late 2013, thousands of RSF recruits (mostly from Darfur) were shipped to the battlefields of South Kordofan, where they suffered heavy losses in fighting against SPLM/A-NC rebels. Subsequently, they were stationed in the North Kordofan capital of al-Ubayd. After various rampages and assaults on the local population (generally viewed as pro-government) were followed by massive protests against their presence, the RSF was ordered back to Darfur in February, where they immediately began attacking local villages and displacing tens of thousands of people (Sudan Tribune [Khartoum], February 26).  Unable to control the militia, the Sudanese government was reported to have paid the RSF $3 million to evacuate its forces from al-Ubayd (al-Taghyeer [Khartoum], February 13). In west Kordofan, repeated incidents of looting, assaults and sexual attacks by RSF personnel in 2013 led local people to rise up against the paramilitary, eventually receiving armed support against the RSF from the local SAF garrison in Kharasan (Radio Dabanga, February 26).

Under these conditions, the RSF was naturally as unwanted in Darfur as it was in Kordofan; a statement by a coalition of 12 Darfur civil society organizations condemned the praise heaped on the paramilitary by its commanders and patrons:

The RSF militias, under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Services, seemingly have been commended for the burning of hundreds of villages in South and North Darfur since February this year; for killing, wounding, raping, and looting the property of innocent civilians, and causing the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Darfuri people (Radio Dabangs, April 24).

On May 21, a pro-opposition news website claimed that “an informed source” had described a major clandestine airlift of RSF fighters to Libya in post-midnight flights from Khartoum Airport. Accompanied by Qatari-bought Sudanese-manufactured weapons, these RSF units were being sent to support hard-pressed Islamist forces in Libya in return for emergency financial support and oil shipments from Qatar and Libya respectively (Hurriyat Sudan, May 21). If this unconfirmed report is true, such a deployment may be more an effort to remove this unruly paramilitary from Sudan than a sincere effort to support Libya’s Islamists.

Note

1. “Border Intelligence Brigade (al-Istikhbarat al-Hudud, a.k.a. Border Guards), Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment (HSBA), Small Arms Survey, Geneva, November 2010, http://www.smallarmssurveysudan.org/fileadmin/docs/facts-figures/sudan/darfur/armed-groups/saf-and-allied-forces/HSBA-Armed-Groups-Border-Guards.pdf

This article was published in the May 30, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Libya Purchases Bloodless Return of its Eastern Oil Facilities

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Andrew McGregor

April 18, 2014

In a move that may help restore revenues to a desperate national government in Tripoli, Libya’s ruling General National Council (GNC) has come to a costly agreement with eastern Libyan gunmen that will enable the resumption of oil exports from Libya’s most productive oilfields, facilities blockaded by their former guards since July 2013. Numerous blockades of oil facilities across Libya since the 2011 revolution have cost the nation billions in revenue, effectively denying it the funds it needs to create the kind of security structure that could prevent gunmen from holding the national economy hostage.

 Ibrahim Jadhran

According to the April 6 deal between the government and Cyrenaica federalists (Cyrenaica is the traditional eastern province of Libya) led by former Petroleum Facilities Guard (PFG) commander Ibrahim Jadhran, the eastern rebels are to hand over two occupied terminals this week, with two more following within a month.  The status of Libya’s oil terminals and production facilities continues to be fluid, but the current situation at the major installations is as follows:

  • Zawiya: This west Libyan terminal was closed again by Berber protesters on April 10 (al-Arabiya, April 11; Libya Herald, April 12). The protest was short-lived, however, and the terminal was set to re-open on April 14, though officials acknowledged there were “continuing issues” with protesters in the area (Reuters, April 13).
  • Al-Sharara: Oil facilities in the southwestern oil field holding an estimated 3 billion barrels has been occupied repeatedly by various groups of gunmen and protesters. Al-Sharara plant has been inoperative since March.
  • Hariga: This terminal is open and loading tankers after the PFG took control of the port on April 9. Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) lifted the force majeure the next day (LANA [Tripoli], April 10). Hariga has a capacity of 110,000 bpd.
  • Zuwaytinah: This terminal is set to re-open, but was recently still in the hands of supporters of Ibrahim Jadhran.
  • Ras Lanuf:  This terminal is still blockaded, but is set to be turned over to the government within a month.
  • Al-Sidr – Libya’s largest terminal, with a daily capacity of 450,000 bpd, remains occupied but is set to re-open within a month.
  • Al-Buri and al-Jurf – These oilfields off western Libya’s Mediterranean coast continue to function without interruption.

Jadhran’s official demands included autonomy for Cyrenaica, a greater share of oil revenues and an investigation into corruption in the Libyan oil ministry. While the GNC agreed to the investigation, there were no commitments on the other issues (al-Jazeera, April 11).

Petroleum Facilities Guard

The secret negotiations behind the agreement nearly broke down at one point, with Jadhran having apparent difficulty in persuading his lieutenants to support a deal. Seven members of Jadhran’s Cyrenaican Political Bureau resigned to protest Jadhran’s monopolization of the talks (al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 6). The Bureau is an unelected body that has positioned itself under Jadhran’s leadership as the administration of an autonomous Cyrenaica (or Barqa in Arabic), though the movement has backed off somewhat from earlier talk of outright secession. Jadhran appears to have jeopardized his local popularity with his failed attempt to arrange the covert sale of eastern Libyan oil by means of a North-Korean flagged tanker in early March.

According to pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat, the agreement also contained secret clauses calling for the formation of a committee to supervise a referendum on federalism in Cyrenaica, the return of state institutions to the region and a more equitable distribution of national oil revenues.  These clauses are supposedly contingent on both parties implementing the present agreement without delay or further amendment (al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 10). However, much of the agreement appears to be financial in nature, with Tripoli pledging an undisclosed sum of money to cover the “back pay and expenses” of the former Petroleum Facilities Guards who took control of the facilities they were supposed to guard last July (al-Jazeera, April 11). The cash payments and amnesties behind the deal are unlikely to help discourage future occupations and blockades, leaving the national economy in the hands of any of the hundreds of armed groups in Libya ready to seize part of the nation’s poorly protected energy-producing infrastructure.

In a televised video statement from Tripoli’s Hadba Prison, Sa’adi al-Qaddafi, the recently extradited son of the late Libyan leader, claimed that he had been working through intermediaries with Ibrahim Jadhran to sell Cyrenaican oil on the international market in order to purchase weapons and equipment for Libya’s remaining Qaddafists. Jadhran immediately refuted the damaging allegations on his own TV station while indicating he would sue those involved in broadcasting Sa’adi’s statement (Libya Herald, April 2). No evidence was provided to support Sa’adi’s statement from prison, which comes at a time when a relatively powerless government is interested in discrediting one of its most powerful opponents.

The oil blockades have crippled Libyan efforts at reconstructing the state and re-imposing national security. Oil exports account for nearly all government revenues and their disruption has threatened the government’s ability to meet its payroll as well as various subsidies based on oil revenues. Most importantly, it prevents the GNC from building a national army capable of enforcing its writ. Though there is discussion of Moroccan and/or Turkish involvement in training a new army, the army’s current powerlessness was best displayed when the Zintan militia controlling Tripoli’s airport seized an incoming shipment of weapons destined for the Libyan national army (Los Angeles Times, April 13).

This article first appeared in the April 18, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Tripoli Battles Shadowy Qaddafists while Tribal Rivals Fight over Southern Libya

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Andrew McGregor

January 25, 2014

Despite living in the midst of some of the world’s most open and sparsely populated spaces, Libya’s southern tribes are engaged in a new round of bitter urban warfare, as snipers, gun-battles and mortar fire take a heavy toll on the civilian population. At stake are control over the abundant resources of the Libyan south, the heavy traffic of its trade routes (both licit and illicit) and the future of tribal and ethnic relations in a post-Qaddafist south. Simultaneous with these disputes, however, is the mysterious and oddly-timed emergence of “Qaddafist supporters” waving green flags (the symbol of the Qaddafist revolution) in several different Libyan centers, most notably in the southern oasis settlement of Sabha, where they were alleged to have seized an airbase.

Sabha CenterCentral Sabha

Sabha, the Strategic Hub of South-West Libya

Since late December, the strategic oasis city of Sabha has been the scene of deadly clashes between the Tubu, a tribe of indigenous Black African nomads ranging through the eastern Sahara, and the Awlad Sulayman, a traditionally nomadic Arab tribe of the Fezzan (southwestern Libya). Sabha, a city of 210,000 people about 400 miles south of Tripoli, is the site of an important military base and airfield. It also serves as a commercial and transportation hub for the Fezzan. Many of the residents are economic migrants from Niger, Chad and the Sudan, while the Qaddadfa (the tribe of Mu’ammar Qaddafi) and the Awlad Sulayman are among the more prominent Arab tribes found in Sabha. One of the last strongholds of the Qaddafi loyalists, Sabha was taken by revolutionary militias in September 2011. [1]

In March 2012, three days of vicious fighting in Sabha that began as a dispute between the Tubu and the Arab Abu Seif and morphed into a battle between the Tubu and the Awlad Sulayman left 40 Tubu and 30 Arabs dead. After a ceasefire ended the fighting by the end of the month, serious clashes erupted in Sabha once more on January 11. Tubu militants directed mortar fire into Sabha from the edge of town, targeting Awlad Sulayman neighborhoods. The street violence reached such a peak that the Sabha National Security Directorate admitted it no longer had the resources to even attempt to maintain law and order. The Sabha Local Council was forced to suspend operations in late December. On January 17, mortars struck the residence of Sabha’s military governor. The region is desperately short of medical supplies, a situation worsened by gunmen who stole part of an emergency shipment of medical supplies from the UAE and an attack on the Sabha hospital (Libya Herald, January 17; January 20).

It appears to have been fallout from this earlier struggle that sparked the latest clashes, as Tubu gunmen from Murzuk stormed a Traghen police station (140 kilometers south of Sabha) on January 9. The gunmen ignored a number of high value targets as they searched specifically for al-Haq Brigade leader Mansur al-Aswad, the deputy commander of the Sabha military zone. The brigade leader was eventually found and murdered, allegedly in retaliation for crimes committed by his Abu Seif militia during the 2012 clashes in Sabha (Libya Herald, January 10).

Both the Tubu and Zuwaya, rivals in Kufra, have communities in the coastal city of Ajdabiya, that city being the northern terminus of the trade routes that run through Kufra to the north. The conflict has traveled north through this route to Ajdabiya, where a Zuwaya unit under the command of the general staff has had deadly clashes with a Tubu unit under the command of the Defense Ministry (AFP, December 23, 2013).

Misrata’s 154 Battalion joined Libyan Army regulars heading to Sabha to restore order (Libya Herald, January 20). The Tubu arrived at reconciliation talks attended by several leading government ministers and a Zintani reconciliation committee with three demands they insisted be met before negotiations could continue:

  • Establishing exactly who the Tubu were fighting (an issue complicated by the tendency of imported Arab militias to ally themselves with local Arab groups);
  • The expulsion of Awlad Sulayman gunmen from local military compounds and the historic Elena castle (formerly known as Fortezza Margherita), an Italian colonial relic that still dominates Sabha;
  • The transfer of the castle, still used for military purposes and detentions, to the Ministry of Tourism (Libya Herald, January 22).

The Sabha “Castle” – an Italian-era fortress

According to Isa Abd al-Majid Mansour, leader of the Tubu Front for the Salvation of Libya, the violence in the south is designed to eliminate the Tubu presence in Libya: “This is not a tribal war… The Islamist militias aided by the Libyan government want to get rid of us. International bodies that come to investigate will see who are the victims, with what arms and in which conditions they were shot. They will know that innocent people are taken from their homes and shot by 14.5mm caliber [weapons]” (Paris Match, January 20). Isa Abd al-Majid insists that Sabha has become a headquarters for al-Qaeda forces drawn from Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania. (Paris Match, January 20).

The Mysterious Qaddafists

A group of “Qaddafists” were reported to have seized Tamenhint Air-base (30 kilometers east of Sabha) on January 18, relinquishing it after sorties by Libyan jet-fighters on January 19 to redeploy “with a large convoy” on the road between Sabha and Barak Shati, according to a Zintani mediator (Libya Herald, January 19). According to the spokesman for the Libyan defense ministry, the occupiers were Qaddafi supporters (al-Arabiya, January 18).

After the Qaddafists left, the base was occupied by Tubu troops of the Murzuk Military Council, though these withdrew on January 20 before the arrival of the Misrata militia, allowing the Qaddafists to reoccupy the facility. Defence Ministry spokesman Abdul-Raziq al-Shabahi said: “The situation in the south … opened a chance for some criminals … loyal to the Gaddafi regime to exploit this and to attack the Tamahind air force base” (Reuters, January 20). Libyan government sources claim the violence in the south is being orchestrated by Saadi Qaddafi, a son of the late dictator who has taken refuge in neighboring Niger.

Other pro-Qaddafi elements were said to have taken to the streets in Ajilat, waving green flags and carrying portraits of the late dictator. The Zintan militia was called in when local authorities were unable to contain the demonstrations and five alleged Qaddafi supporters supposedly on their way to Ajilat were killed in nearby Sabratha. Though authorities claimed to have arrested seven Qaddafists, they refused to release any information about the suspects (Libya Herald, January 22).

Oddly, there was also a manifestation of green-flag waving “Qaddafists” who tried to attack the Italian section of a non-Muslim cemetery in Tripoli. The group was driven off by locals, but have apparently returned at night twice to damage graves, even killing the night-watchman in their second visit. West of Zahra, other alleged Qaddafists were reported to have raised the green flag (Libya Herald, January 20).

The identity of the alleged Qaddafists remains in question. In Sabha, citizens became alarmed when reports began to circulate that the Qaddafists were actually “foreign troops from Chad,” prompting a formal Libyan government denial (Libya Herald, January 21).

Tubu Militia MurzukTubu Militiamen, Murzuk (Karlos Zurutuza/IPS)

Tubu militias have occupied two other important military bases in Libya’s largely ungoverned southwest, a refuge for smugglers and terrorists. Al-Wigh airbase was occupied by Colonel Barka Warduko’s Murzuk Desert Shield militia and the military post at al-Tum was occupied by the Oum al-Aranib militia commanded by Sharfadeen Barka.

Qaddafists have also been blamed for the violence in the Ajilat region (on Libya’s northwest coast), where a militia from Zawiya has been fighting with the Warshefana tribe, which has regularly been accused of pro-Qaddafist tendencies.

The neighboring groups have been fighting sporadically since the overthrow of Qaddafi, deploying weapons as large as Grad rockets.  Misrati forces armed with Katyusha rockets and Zintani militia fighters were deployed to intervene in the fighting alongside armor belonging to the National Army (Libya Herald, January 21). The Misrata militia and and Tripoli militias were withdrawn on January 21 after 18 people died in clashes, with local authorities comparing the actions of the militias to those of the Italian colonial army (Libya Herald, January 22). The Warshefana are regularly accused of being pro-Qaddafi and held responsible for a wave of kidnappings and car-jackings around Tripoli.

The Killings in Kufra

A seemingly intractable conflict in Kufra Oasis between the Tubu and the Zuwaya Arabs (who seized the region from the Tubu in 1840) flared up again on January 20, as Arabs and Tubu shelled each other with mortars over the next few days. The struggle between the two tribes, both of whom would like to have full control of the smuggling/trade routes that run from the African interior through Kufra, has also been carried on by continuing tit-for-tat kidnappings of random members of rival communities.

However, Isa Abd al-Majid, leader of the Tubu fighters around Kufra, does not identify the Zuwaya as the real problem in the region: “We are fighting al-Qaeda. They want to eradicate us to occupy our land and control the frontiers with Chad and Niger, which will permit them to attack the French military base in Niger and kidnap Westerners” (Paris Match, January 20).

Government Response – Revival of the Militias

Libya’s ruling General National Council (GNC) declared a State of Emergency on January 18, citing the clashes in Sabha. Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan called on the revolutionary militias to rally to the south to expel the Qaddafists and restore order in the south and other security “hotspots” (Libya Herald, January 18). The government’s decision to recall the militias in the midst of efforts to demobilize them and integrate their members into the Libyan National Army has dismayed many Libyans who have become exasperated with the militias’ roadblocks and almost daily violence.  Prime Minister Zeidan said the Misrata militia had been “commissioned by the government to conduct a national task… to spread security stability in the region” (al-Arabiya, January 18). Tubu Colonel Barka Warduko, the head of the Murzuk Military Council, claimed that Ali Zeidan was provoking and exploiting tribal clashes in the south to create a security crisis that would prevent the replacement of his government (Libya Herald, January 21).

The GNC released a statement insisting it had not abandoned laws 27 and 53 (ordering the demobilization of the militias), but their recall was an effective admission that the government security forces are unable to restore security on their own, providing the militias with a reason for their continued existence. Many Libyans felt the militias had lost the justification for their existence after the Misrata Brigade opened fire on anti-militia demonstrators in Tripoli on November 15, 2013, killing 47 people. Though the GNC claims it has not reversed its policy on militia demobilization, it is now clearly saying one thing and doing another.

Tubu demonstrators blockaded the Sarir power station (near Jalu Oasis in eastern Libya) for several weeks in December and January to demand greater representation in Kufra’s municipal government and an extension of the power supply to the Tubu community at Rebyana.

Other Tubu have been integrated into the National Army, most notably the mostly Tubu 25th Brigade, charged with guarding the Sarir, Messla and al-Shula oil facilities in eastern Libya. Three soldiers of the 25th Brigade on a supply run from Sarir to the nearby Jalu Oasis were ambushed and killed in mid-January. The unit’s commander, Saleh Muhammad, speculated that the gunmen might have been the same as those responsible for a late December attack on a Sarir farm project, in which five attackers were killed but the project manager kidnapped (Libya Herald, January 18). Workers at the Sarir power station stopped work the next day due to security concerns, causing power shortages in Tripoli and Benghazi (Libya Herald, January 20).

Conclusion

By January 22, reconciliation talks had helped ease the intensity of the fighting in Sabha, though Sabha military commander Muhammad al-Ayat al-Busaif suggested there was still a problem with “Qaddafi loyalists, some of whom remain in the surrounding area, including the Tamenhint airbase” (Libya Herald, January 22). The Qaddafists remain shadowy, unidentified characters that provide the Tripoli government with a reason to reactivate its reliance on a more tangible threat, Libya’s unruly and independent militias.

The emergence of the elusive Qaddafists could, as suggested by some, to be part of an effort to create an external security crisis (as opposed to Libya’s internal security crisis) to preserve the Zeidan administration at a time when it is under strong criticism. While there is serious opposition to Zeidan’s government, there is no consensus on a replacement – considering Libya’s current state and the inability of the government to enforce its writ almost anywhere, it is questionable whether anyone would really want the job. Faced with the possibility of a non-confidence vote, Zeidan remarked: “I would be happy if the vote went through” (Middle East Online, January 20).

The Tubu are in the midst of a cultural revival (similar to that of the North African Berbers) as the tribe asserts its non-Arab status and demands recognition in the forthcoming Libyan constitution. They are unlikely to return quietly to the days when Qaddafi called them foreigners and withdrew their Libyan identity cards.

Regardless of who is responsible for starting or perpetuating each round of Tubu-Arab violence, there is no doubt that such violence encourages the incipient Tubu separatist movement, closely tied to the Tubu cultural revival. Though there is no proof of such intentions, it remains possible that some acts of Tubu violence may be committed by independence-minded militants with the intent of provoking further clashes to politicize the rest of the community. However, the growth of a Tubu separatist/independence movement in Libya would create immediate concerns in Chad and Niger, which also host Tubu populations with considerable military experience and expertise in modern desert fighting.

Note

  1. For previous clashes in Sabha, see “Arab-Tubu Clashes in Southern Libya’s Sabha Oasis,” Terrorism Monitor, April 5, 2012 and “Libya’s Sabha Oasis: Former Qaddafist Stronghold Becoming Regional Center of Insecurity,” Terrorism Monitor, April 19, 2013.

This article first appeared in the January 25, 2014 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

 

Libyan Special Forces Expel Ansar al-Shari’a from Benghazi

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Andrew McGregor

November 28, 2013

There are conflicting accounts of how the clashes began, but some sort of minor contact between gunmen of Benghazi’s Ansar al-Shari’a and soldiers of the Libyan Saiqa Special Forces Brigade early on November 25 set off heavy fighting that left nine dead and 49 wounded but saw the long-desired expulsion of Ansar al-Shari’a from the city by the end of the day. Ansar al-Shari’a is believed to have been responsible for the 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. After being previously driven from its Benghazi bases by public demonstrations in September 2012, Ansar al-Shari’a returned quietly five months later, promoting themselves as providers of humanitarian aid, public services and security in a city still struggling to establish an effective administration.

Saiqa Special Forces in Benghazi, November 25

There was a danger during the fighting that Islamist reinforcements might arrive from other Ansar al-Shari’a bases in nearby Derna (where an ongoing assassination campaign has targeted everyone from judges to traffic police) or Ajdabiya, but security officials issued a warning that any convoy attempting to enter or leave Benghazi would be treated as an illegal militia and targeted by military aircraft. The Ansar al-Shari’a militants in Derna are led by Abu Sufyan bin Qumu, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate who was released to Libyan custody in 2007. A column of ten Ansar al-Shari’a “technicals” (gun-mounted 4x4s) attempting to leave Derna for Benghazi were turned back by Libyan Army units from al-Marj and Beida. Two other Islamist militias in Derna, the Abu Salim Brigade and the Army of the Islamic State of Libya, remained at their bases (Libya Herald, November 26).

Ansar al-Shari’a’s detachment in Ajdabiya was forced out of the town on the same day by armed civilians (Libyan News Agency, November 25). Armed civilians also joined the effort to expel Ansar al-Shari’a in Benghazi, but were asked to return home by Saiqa commander Wanis Bukhamada (Libya Herald, November 25). Ansar al-Shari’a also has bases further afield in Misrata and Sirte, but access to Benghazi from the latter base was prevented by a roadblock set up at Wadi Ahmar by the newly created Barqa defense force, the armed element of autonomy-seeking Cyrenaicans in eastern Libya (Libya Herald, November 25; for the Cyrenaican autonomy movement, see Terrorism Monitor, October 31).

Violence returned to the streets of Benghazi on the evening of November 26 – 27 as gunmen threw grenades and clashed with the Libyan Army in three parts of the city. The situation was brought under control as reinforcements were sent to the affected areas. Ansar al-Shari’a elements were suspected, but security spokesmen admitted they were unsure who was responsible (Libya Herald, November 26; Reuters, November 27). Three soldiers were assassinated in Benghazi the same day by unknown assailants.

Laws 27 and 53 of Libya’s ruling General National Council (GNC) call on all Libya’s militias to disband or join the national army by the end of the year. However, this raises the possibility of large numbers of new additions bringing an extremist ideology with them as they are integrated into a national military. Saiqa commander Wanis Bukhamada has promised his Special Forces would use force against any militia that failed to disband and attacked the police and army after that date (Libya Herald, November 26). Bukhamada is a former officer under the Qaddafi regime who defected to the rebels during the revolution and led the liberation of Brega.

There are signs that the security situation in Libya’s two major cities may be shifting in favor of those seeking the removal of the militias from the streets. Most of Tripoli’s warring militias left the city after the Misrata militia discredited its claims to be protecting the people of Tripoli when its fighters opened fire on peaceful demonstrators calling for their removal on November 15, killing 46 and wounding more than 500 more (Ahram Online [Cairo], November 26).

On the same day as the Benghazi clashes, a representative of Ansar al-Shari’a appeared on Libyan TV to announce that all those who chose not to comply with Shari’a in Libya would be fought and killed, as would the French and anyone seeking democracy or secularism. Derna-based commander Mahmoud al-Barassi fueled the GNC’s efforts to disband the militias by saying the GNC and the Army are apostates, insisting Prime Minister Ali Zeidan knows “nothing about Islam” and claiming that all opponents of Ansar al-Shari’a are “enemies.” Other elements of Ansar al-Shari’a were believed to have gone into damage control after al-Barassi’s remarks (Libya al-Ahrar TV, November 25; Libya Herald, November 25). 

This article first appeared in the November 28 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Berbers Seize Libyan Oil Terminal to Press Demand for Recognition

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Andrew McGregor

November 14, 2013

The ongoing and economically crippling occupation of Libya’s Mellitah gas and oil terminal (63 miles west of Tripoli) by armed Berber protesters actually became worse on November 12, when workers at the terminal launched a 72-hour strike to protest the occupation, leaving open the possibility of major power cuts to Libyan coastal and mountain communities (Libya Herald, November 12).

The Mellitah oil terminal, which has a capacity of handling 160,000 barrels per day (bpd), is one of several major terminals in Libya suffering blockades by armed gunmen; others include the 340,000 bpd al-Sidr and the 220,000 bpd Ras Lanuf terminals (for the broader implications of the various blockades, see Terrorism Monitor, October 31). The Berber protests at the terminal began on October 26, when armed men gave the ruling General National Congress (GNC) energy committee a one-week ultimatum regarding language rights and increased representation on Libya’s constitutional committee before they would shut the terminal down.

Libya’s constitutional committee has allotted six seats of 60 to Libya’s minorities; two for the Berbers (the self-called Imazighen), two for the Tuareg and two for the Tubu of southern Libya. The method of assembling the committee has been a source of intense disagreement over whether members should be selected or elected directly, with the latter choice eventually prevailing, even though it has meant further delays in beginning the committee’s work. In the meantime, much of the country is at a standstill until the new Libyan state is defined and organized.  Berber representatives to the GNC resigned in July after failing to persuade the Congress to make Amazigh, the language of the Berbers, an official language of Libya.

Berber anger at the constitutional process has been building for several months. In mid-August, Berber protesters demanding recognition of minority rights forced their way into the Libyan parliament in Tripoli, smashing furniture and breaking windows (Reuters, August 14). In late September, Berber youth from the western Jabal Nafusa region cut off a gas pipeline to protest the absence of the Amazigh language from the proposed constitution (Middle East Online, September 30; AFP, October 1).

Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has warned of serious consequences if the oil blockades are not removed soon, including impediments to Libya’s ability to cover its budget expenditures, beginning in December. The GNC’s inability to pay nearly $100 million owed for earlier imports of wheat now threatens the ability of Libyan wheat importers to make further purchases for the heavily subsidized bread industry (Reuters, November 6). Zeidan specifically mentioned the blockage of the Mellitah terminal as having the potential of forcing Italy to seek its oil and gas elsewhere (Reuters, November 10). The Mellitah terminal is owned jointly by Italy’s Eni Petroleum and the Libyan state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC). According to Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni, the Berber occupiers are pressuring the company to cut gas supplies to Italy (Reuters, November 6). Eni is the largest foreign oil company operating in Libya and was responsible for producing some 270,000 bpd before the fall of Qaddafi.

The Berber gunmen are led by Adel al-Falu, a former Libyan army officer once tasked with protecting the Mellitah terminal. With oil exports from the terminal halted, al-Falu is now seeking to halt gas exports through trans-Mediterranean pipelines to Italy, with the objective of pressuring Italy and the European Union to force Libya’s GNC to recognize the Amazigh language (Reuters, November 8). Most of the 50 to 75 gunmen occupying Mellitah arrived from the nearby town of Zuwara in coast-guard boats the Berbers seized during the 2011 revolution. Many of the occupiers are veterans of the revolution. Zuwara has been in the midst of a revival of Berber culture and language since the launch of the revolution (Agence de Presse Kabyle, September 19, 2011). The Amazigh name for Zuwara incorporates the name of the Berber group that lives in the area, Tamurt n Wat Willul (Town of the Ait Willul) (for Berber communities in Libya, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, Pt. 1, May 5 2011; Pt. 2, May 12, 2011). Zuwara is the hometown of Nuri Abu Sahmain, the chairman of Libya’s ruling body, the Tripoli-based GNC. The largest concentration of Libya’s approximate 600,000 Berbers (roughly 10% of the population) reside around the western town of Jadu in the Jabal Nafusa region, the home of a Berber militia that played a vital role in the overthrow of the late Mu’ammar Qaddafi.

The International Berber Flag Flies outside the Mellitah Terminal (AFP)

The Libyan protests are part of a larger movement to revive the Berber language and its dialects in North Africa after centuries of official and unofficial repression designed to replace Amazigh with Arabic. The problem now, however, is finding qualified instructors of Amazigh. Few such exist in Libya, meaning that only one school in southern Libya will begin teaching Amazigh next year (The National [Abu Dhabi], November 5). In Zuwara, some primary schools have succeeded in hiring Amazigh language teachers from Algeria and Morocco (Reuters, November 8).

There is little consensus on the exact extent of the blockade at the Mellitah terminal, in terms of both oil and gas exports. Even as the Prime Minister warns of the long-term impact of the blockade, NOC spokesmen have maintained that the occupiers are limited to a small part of the terminal and that “the complex is working as normal,” with ships loading oil and gas continuing to flow through the Greenstream pipeline to Sicily. On the same day, however, Eni CEO Paolo Scaroni said the Mellitah terminal was “under attack” (Libya Herald, November 6). The Mellitah occupation does not appear to have affected gas flows to Italy through the Greenstream pipeline from the offshore al-Bouri field. The Berber occupiers announced on November 6 that they would cut off the Greenstream gas pipeline (AFP, November 6). On November 8, however, the militants said they would restore gas glows on November 10 as a “good-will gesture,” but with the warning that the pipeline would be cut if the number of seats allotted to the Berber community on the constitutional committee was not increased (Libya Herald, November 8).

Unable to enforce the writ of the central government anywhere in Libya without the cooperation of local armed militias, the Libyan Prime Minister has also warned recently of the possibility of foreign military intervention unless the nation rallies to eliminate the armed groups: “The international community cannot tolerate a state in the middle of the Mediterranean that is a source of violence, terrorism and murder” (al-Jazeera, November 10).

This article first appeared in the November 14, 2013 issue of Terrorism Monitor.

Autonomy Campaign in Cyrenaica Brings Libya’s Oil Industry to a Halt

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Andrew McGregor

October 31, 2013

Even as Libya descended into post-revolution political chaos, its vital oil industry made a rapid and surprising recovery, aided partly by the reluctance of both sides in the revolutionary struggle to damage or destroy the nation’s energy infrastructure. Today, however, Libya’s oil industry is largely paralyzed as it falls prey to post-revolution political maneuvering, especially in Libya’s eastern region of Cyrenaica. In September, production fell to 300,000 barrels per day, the lowest output since the 2011 anti-Qaddafi revolution.  

A strike by armed guards in the oil fields that began in July developed into a general blockade of large parts of Libya’s oil production facilities that was joined by other armed groups and individuals as the rest of the country was forced to import enough fuel to meet its own needs. In Cyrenaica, the original economic causes of the strikes have been joined by new demands for an autonomous Cyrenaica within a federal Libya. Libya’s capital, Tripoli, located in western Libya, has experienced power blackouts and water cuts (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 7).

A New Government for Cyrenaica

There has been talk of establishing an autonomous Cyrenaica since the overthrow of former president Mu’ammar Qaddafi, with much of the discussion revolving around the role of the tribally-based Cyrenaica Transitional Council (CTC) and its titular leader, Ahmad Zubayr al-Sanusi, a great-nephew of King Idris al-Sanusi who served 31 years in the regime’s worst prisons after failing to overthrow the young Colonel Qaddafi in a 1970 plot. Official neglect of Cyrenaica dates from the early years of Mu’ammar Qaddafi’s rule, when he survived several plots organized by royalists and other factions from Cyrenaica.

The first major step in establishing Cyrenaica’s autonomy was the declaration of self-governance for the region by the Cyrenaica National Council within a (non-existent) federal Libya on June 1 (all questions regarding the nature of the future Libyan state have yet to be decided by a constitutional committee). However, al-Sanusi’s faction of the CTC was displaced by a younger group of secessionists who rallied around former militia commander Ibrahim al-Jadhran, a former rebel commander who became leader of a newly formed Political Bureau designed to advocate for Cyrenaican autonomy on August 17.

The newly declared autonomous state, to be known by its Arabic name, Barqa, corresponds to the old state of Cyrenaica, constituting the eastern half of Libya at the time of its independence in 1951. North-western Tripolitania and the south-western desert state of Fezzan formed the rest of Libya. In 1963, the three states were re-divided into ten new provinces, bringing an end, administratively at least, to Cyrenaica. The secessionists do not recognize any inconvenient changes to the original 1951 constitution. The revived region will be divided administratively into four provinces, Benghazi, Tobruk, Ajdabiya and Jebel Akhdar, each being run by a ten-person management team (Libya Herald, October 25).

Ibrahim al-Jadhran, a 33-year-old who makes his headquarters in Ajdabiya, is reported to have spent seven years in Qaddafi’s notorious Abu Salim prison before becoming a successful battalion commander in Cyrenaica during the revolution. Al-Jadhran’s reward was to be appointed chief of the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) in eastern Libya, a powerful and potentially lucrative post. The PFG is overseen by Libya’s Defense Ministry but funded by the Oil Ministry.

Al-Jadhran has since been dismissed from the PFG and an arrest warrant issued for insubordination in August (Bloomberg, October 1). In a recent interview, Jadhran described the ongoing political process as unavoidable:

We have already declared our independence financially… After being ignored and neglected by the current government, we need to be free to create our own administration and to be in charge of our own budgets. Autonomy is the only way to get our proper rights and cast off this oppression (Petroleum Economist, October 8). 

On October 2, the secessionists announced the appointment of Abd Rabo Abd al-Hamid al-Barasi as the head of the executive bureau, to be located in al-Bayda, as well as the appointment of Colonel Najib Sulayman al-Hasi as commander-in-chief of a projected 20,000-man Barqa defense force (drawn largely from the 17,000 petroleum guards and militia members that have joined them), based in the town of Brega. The force will be tasked with the protection of Cyrenaican oil facilities and securing the cities of Derna and Benghazi in order to halt the ongoing bombing and assassination campaigns. The appointees were viewed as being the choices of Ibrahim Jadhran.

Officials of the self-proclaimed government have maintained that the move to establish a new administration in Cyrenaica is not an effort to take sole control of the majority of Libya’s oil resources. According to Abd Rabo al-Barasi: “We only want Barqa’s share according to the 1951 constitution” (Libya Herald, October 25). Elsewhere, al-Barasi has said: “The aim of the regional government is to share resources in a better fashion, and to end the centralized system adopted by the authorities in Tripoli” (Arab News, October 25). After security has been restored in the cities of Derna and Benghazi, where over 80 people, including prominent members of the security forces, have been assassinated in the last year alone, the new administration has promised it will focus on attracting new investment to the region.

There is a tribal dimension to the dispute between al-Jadhran and the GNC; al-Jadhran and his brother Salim are both members of the Magharba tribe, a large and influential group that occupies the most productive oil fields in Cyrenaica. The GNC worries about alienating the entire tribe if it takes firm measures with al-Jadhran (Bloomberg, October 1). PFG commander Bukhamada also cites a challenge to national unity inherent in any attempt to dislodge the rebellious guard leader: “On a purely military level, of course the Ministry of Defence could easily defeat Jathran’s men, but politically the situation is very difficult. If troops are sent in from the west, that would only help to further unite the tribes of the east against the government” (Petroleum Economist, October 8). In some cases, secessionists and other Cyrenaican opponents of the central government in Tripoli have exploited the fear of civil war to warn against government-sponsored military operations to reclaim the oil fields of the east. Al-Jadhran and others also like to characterize the Tripoli government as being controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood to discredit their efforts to regain control of the east (Reuters, October 27; Petroleum Economist, October 8). Local Islamists in Benghazi, in turn, regard al-Jadhran as a tribalist who is pulling Libya backwards in order to strengthen the Magharba (Reuters, October 27).

A spokesman for the GNC said that the declaration of a “so-called Cyrenaica Region” was illegal (Libya Herald, October 25).  While criticizing central authorities for “incompetence and corruption,” al-Barasi, with little explanation, maintains the new government in Cyrenaica represents “not a secession movement, but a movement for Libya… Cyrenaica is the start and the aim is Libya” (Libya Herald, October 25).

Independence for the Fezzan?

The desire for autonomy within Libya has also spread to Libya’s sparsely inhabited south-western region, the Fezzan, a land of remorseless desert punctuated with a few oases and several vital trade routes into the African interior.

In late September, Fezzani elders from Sabha, Waddan, Wadi al-Shatti, Jufra and Obari met in Obari to discuss “the inability of the government to meet public requirements, especially in the Fezzan region,” according to a statement issued by the gathering (Libya Herald, September 27). The statement went on to say that a new, autonomous administration would be headed by a military governor. The Fezzani autonomy movement seems to be dominated by Arabs at present, with little support from Tuareg and Tubu residents of the region. Support is far from universal even within Fezzan’s Arab community, especially within Sabha, the regional capital and home to a major military base during the Qaddafi-era.

Libyan reports carried throughout the Middle East claimed that delegates declared Fezzan to be an autonomous federal province of Libya with Nuri Muhammad al-Qouizi as its president (al-Arabiya, September 26). The Sabha Local Council said it did not recognize the decision as the members of the elders’ council that made the decision had not consulted with the people or institutions of the region (Libya Herald, September 28). 

Shutting Down the Oil Industry

Jadhran’s followers now control approximately 60% of the nation’s oil wealth. Among the closed terminals are Libya’s two most important, al-Sider and Ras-Lanuf, both located in the Libyan east (UPI, September 27). Protests at the terminals that began in August over pay issues eventually merged with demands for Libyan federalism (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 7). The head of the Libyan parliament’s energy committee, Naji Mokhtar, has admitted paying $2 million of his own funds to an unnamed leading member of the PFG to help open the oil terminals, though he characterized it as a mediation effort rather than a bribe: “Exceptional times call for exceptional measures… I went to them thinking they would have a sense of patriotism” (Bloomberg, September 24).

Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG)

In Tobruk, where local leaders favor national unity over Cyrenaican autonomy (while still insisting on certain political concessions), Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was able to announce the reopening of the Marsa Hariga terminal on October 28 (Libya Herald, October 28). On the same day, however, Tuareg protesters demanding national ID numbers (to clarify their Libyan citizenship) and official recognition for their language seized and shut down the Sharara oilfield in Obari (Fezzan) and a closure of the Mellitah terminal (run jointly by Eni and Libya’s National Oil Corporation – NOC) entered a second day after roughly 80 Berber gunmen from the north-western port city of Zuwara seized the terminal by means of an amphibious assault to press their demands for greater representation in the constitutional committee (Libya Herald, October 28). Embarrassingly, Zuwara is the hometown of Nuri Abu Sahmain, the chairman of the GNC (see Terrorism Monitor Brief, July 11). The Sharara oilfield had only just resumed pumping operations on September 16 after the Sharara, al-Fil and Hamada pipelines were shut down by the Zintan militia (Libya Herald, September 16). A September 4 announcement of a 20% hike in public sector salaries, including oil facility guards, failed to have any significant impact on the strikes (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 7).

Reported attempts by the strikers and petroleum guards to sell oil on the black market led Prime Minister Ali Zeidan to warn in mid-August that: “Any vessel not under contract to the National Oil Company that approaches the terminals will be bombed from the air and sea” (Tripoli Post, August 17). Al-Jadhran does not express concern with these threats, saying: “We’ve got access to boats and we’re ready to offer tankers military escorts to help protect them from government forces” (Petroleum Economist, October 8).

It is a measure of the weakness of the GNC that it only decided this month to stop paying striking guards of the 21,000 man PFG who were blockading outbound flows of oil and gas. Such measures have had some success: in central Libya, PFG commander Brigadier Idris Bukhamada ordered all PFG members to re-enlist and accept government authority or forfeit their salaries – some 2,000 of the 3,000 guards quickly complied (Bloomberg, October 1). In the east, however, there are other factors at work, including political motivations and the possibility of alternate sources of income, either through illegal petroleum sales or “donations” from various interested parties in the oil industry, such as shippers, traders or rival oil companies.

ExxonMobil, a minor player in Libya with offshore operations, announced on September 17 that security concerns were forcing it to reduce staff and operations in Libya. Italian oil firm Eni and American Marathon have both suffered losses during the disruptions that have cost Libya an estimated $5 billion so far this year. Marathon has indicated its interest in selling its 16.3% stake in Waha Oil, Libya’s largest foreign partnership (Reuters, September 17; Libya Herald, October 3).

Italy’s Eni, which runs the largest energy operations in Libya, has suffered from a month-long and ongoing shutdown of its Wafa field in western Libya, near the Algerian border. In this case, Wafa, which supplies gas to Italy through two trans-Mediterranean pipelines, was shut down by strikers seeking financial rather than political aims and who saw the ongoing turmoil in energy fields elsewhere in Libya as an opportune time to take action (Gulf Times, October 25; Libya Herald, September 29). 

Conclusion

The turmoil in the oil fields has forced the GNC to dip into Libya’s financial reserves to maintain the most basic government services, with fears that the government may soon be unable to pay government employees if the situation is not reversed soon. There are reports that many mid-level officials and administrators have already decided to resign and leave the country (al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 23). There are also an estimated 225,000 militia members receiving government salaries in return for their “loyalty” to the GNC. Their commitment to the GNC, already fairly shallow (and in some cases non-existent) will be severely challenged by any interference with their paychecks.

Libya’s central government has made almost no progress in building a national defense structure that would allow it to enforce its writ without the cooperation (at a price) of Libya’s militias. Without a national security force of any significance, Libya’s ruling GNC simply does not have the means of dealing with powerful militia leaders who decide to impose their own direction on the nation. However, the GNC and Libya’s oil ministry are not entirely blameless in this affair – dubious practices such as loading oil tankers without the use of meters to measure the size of the shipment and awarding export contracts without going through proper channels have been cited by oil facilities guards as cause for their takeover of major oil terminals (Tripoli Post, August 17).  Dr. Abd al-Bari Ali al-Arousi, Libya’s Minister of Oil and Gas, is frequently cited by the strikers as a corrupt influence in the Ministry. Prime Minister Zeidan is also widely viewed as having failed to address security concerns in Libya or make any progress in reining in Libya’s militias and rebellious petroleum guards, leading to the August 18 resignation of Interior Minister Muhammad al-Shaykh, who cited lack of support from the prime minister during his three months on the job (al-Jazeera, August 18).

Questions regarding the legality of oil sales by the PFG and its allies independent of the Libyan Oil Ministry would normally be clearly defined by law and practice, but the prior assistance provided by Qatar and NATO in allowing rebel oil sales to help self-finance the Libyan revolution has muddied the waters by setting a precedent for oil sales independent of the Tripoli government. Strong demand for Libya’s high-quality oil may encourage independent deals with the new Cyrenaican administration, which is currently the only body capable of delivering the product from the vast eastern oil fields.

Popular support for the declaration of autonomy is difficult to gauge in Cyrenaica, where no clear consensus has yet emerged despite the declarations of more ambitious members of the political community. Nonetheless, the possibility of a local move to take control of the majority of Libya’s resource wealth or even the perception of such a move could trigger a new conflict within Libya and even a new round of external intervention focused on securing Libya’s oil wealth.

Note

1. Andrew McKillop, “Who Controls Libyan Oil?” October 17, 2013, http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article42720.html

This article first appeared in the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor on October 31, 2013

Libya’s First Berber Leader Describes Security Situation in Libya

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Andrew McGregor

July 11, 2013

Nuri Abu Sahmain, the new chairman of Libya’s ruling body, the General National Congress (GNC), is the first member of Libya’s minority Amazigh (or Berber) community to lead the nation. A surprise choice for the post, Abu Sahmain replaces Muhammad Yusuf al-Magarief, who fell victim to Libya’s controversial new “political isolation law,” which prohibits former members of the Qaddafi regime (including ex-diplomats like al-Magarief) from holding political office. Formally unaffiliated to any political party, Abu Sahmain sits as an independent in the GNC but is considered a member of a religiously conservative bloc within the GNC formed earlier this year under the banner of Loyalty to Martyrs’ Blood (North Africa Journal, February 21).

Nuri Abu Samhain

The new GNC leader hails from the largely Berber town of Zuwara (Tamurt n Wat Willul in Berber) in the coast region of western Libya. Natives of the town speak a dialect of Berber known as Zuwara Berber and are mainly (but not exclusively) members of the Ibadi sect of Islam, which many orthodox Arab Muslims regard as an unorthodox branch of the religion that developed as an offshoot of the much-despised and long-eliminated Kharijite Islamic movement. However, Abu Sahmain’s largest group of supporters in the vote for a new GNC chief came from the highly orthodox Muslim Brotherhood’s Hizb al-Adala wa’l-Bina (Justice and Development Party), leading to suspicion that Abu Sahmain was an ally, if not a member, of Libya’s Muslim Brotherhood. In response to these suspicions, Abu Sahmain has denied being a member of the Brotherhood, but notes that: “The ties that link me to all the parties, whether Muslim Brothers or others, are the constants of building this homeland. If such constants connect me to the Muslim Brothers or the National Forces Alliance or any other party, then I am honored to have such connections… I have never joined any party in my life” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 30).

The new GNC leader will also have to face accusations from Libya’s largely Arab or Arabized society that he will use his appointment to “Berberize” Libya. Sahmain has sought to ward off such suspicions while being clear he will not miss this chance to restore the Berber language and ethnicity that were targeted for extinction by Mu’ammar Qaddafi, who once described claims that Berbers even existed in Libya as “colonialist propaganda” (Jana [Tripoli], June 2, 2010). According to Sahmain:

If the Amazigh language is one of the tools to unify this homeland, we are proud of this culture and language… However, the rumors that are being spread by some that it is one way of planting an ethnic culture is not in the culture of our magnanimous people… Libya is united in Islam and the homeland; it is united in the Amazigh and Arab cultures…  The Amazigh language was fought [against] in this country and marginalized by the [Qaddafi] regime. It would be our national duty if we find a way to enable those who wish to learn it or to help the state in spreading this culture (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 30).

GNC First Deputy Speaker Dr. Jum’ah Atiqah described concerns surrounding the selection of a Berber for GNC chairman as being “absolutely baseless, and this selection is considered as an indicator of positive change in Libya” (Gnc.gov.ly, June 25).

While acknowledging ongoing security difficulties within Libya, Abu Sahmain remains optimistic the situation can be reversed and points out that the existing problems do not pose an existential threat to the Libyan state: “Surprises may occur in a specific area once in a while. Things may happen in Tripoli or Benghazi or in the south. However, they are all under the control of the state. They have not caused us insecurity at the level of national security.” The new GNC chairman claims to travel back and forth from Zuwarra to Tripoli in his own vehicle and without bodyguards (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 30).

Though many observers might describe lawless armed militias, Islamist terrorists or tribal rivalries as the greatest security threats in Libya, Abu Sahmain maintains that the real threat to Libya comes from supporters of the deposed Qaddafi regime operating both within the country and in foreign refuges: “They are trying to spread chaos and lack of public reassurance. They are trying to gain positions or make some citizens feel that Libya is not calm.” Pressed by a skeptical reporter to provide names of such plotters (given that most major members of the former regime are dead or under detention), Abu Sahmain declined to give names, but suggested somewhat vaguely that: “We have intelligence information; in fact, we have specific names. The information we have has led to the arrest of several groups in several towns; they are under investigation” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 30).

One of Abu Sahmain’s most important tasks will be to oversee the drafting of a new Libyan constitution, a process necessary for the nation’s political evolution, but one that will be the subject of numerous disputes between religious and political factions. Libya’s largest political coalition, Mahmoud Jibril’s National Forces Alliance (NFA), declared on July 4 that it was boycotting GNC sessions to protest the delays in forming a new constitution, a task that is to be completed by 60 delegates yet to be elected by Libyan voters (Ammun News [Amman], July 5). Libya’s Rafd (Rejection) movement, which claims a mass following, has promised Egyptian-style mass protests to topple the GNC if it fails to make significant progress by October 30 (al-Jadidah [Tripoli], July 4). Abu Sahmain has already suggested postponing the vote until 2014, claiming that “Public opinion accepts what is necessitated by the national duty” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 30).

Abu Sahmain will inherit another set of headaches in his new role as official commander-in-chief of Libya’s nascent armed forces, which are still struggling to create a professional national army from the raw material of highly-politicized and well-armed militias that typically take direction from the government when it suits them and besiege government buildings when it does not. Sahmain’s election comes at a time when acting Libyan chief-of-staff General Salim al-Qinaydi is feuding with Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, accusing the government of interfering in military affairs and threatening to bring the army into the streets if the government does not expand the Defense Ministry’s budget (al-Jadidah [Tripoli], June 25; June 27).