Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis Intensifies Assassination Campaign in the Sinai

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Andrew McGregor

November 28, 2013

Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) is the Egyptian branch of a Gazan Islamist organization that first appeared in the Sinai in the days after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Since then, ABM has become one of the most active and aggressive of the many militant groups now found in the Sinai. Its latest high-profile operation was the November 17 assassination in Nasr City of Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Mabrouk Abu Khattab of Egypt’s National Security Agency (NSA), one of the leading investigators involved in the prosecution of ex-president Muhammad Mursi and other leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the past, ABM has mounted several attacks on the pipelines that carry Egyptian natural gas to Israeli and Jordanian markets, claimed responsibility for an attack on Israeli troops in September, 2012 and attempted to assassinate Egyptian Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim on September 5 (Daily News Egypt, July 26, 2012).

Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Mabrouk

In its claim of responsibility for the murder of Colonel Mabrouk, ABM maintained that it had targeted the senior investigator over the commitment to trial in Alexandria of 15 women and seven girls for participation in a violent pro-Mursi demonstration in Alexandria in October: “[Mabrouk] was one of the major tyrants of the state security apparatus and the assassination was a response to the arrest of free women by this malicious apparatus.” The statement ended by promising further attacks if the women were not freed. [1]Given Mabrouk’s peripheral connection with the Alexandria case, prosecutors suspected the ABM statement was intended to mislead their investigations and asked the Interior Ministry to investigate the declaration (al-Masry al-Youm, November 21).

Suspicion of complicity in the assassination has fallen on the Muslim Brotherhood, which condemned the attack on November 19 and assailed efforts by the media to associate them with the assassination (Daily News Egypt, November 20). The timing of Mabrouk’s murder is noteworthy, as it came shortly before his testimony in the Mursi trial and a week after submitting a CD supporting the charges of spying leveled against the ex-president. Judicial sources have indicated that the CD includes a recording of a phone call between Mursi and al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as well as another phone conversation in which Mursi admits providing Hamas with information on the security situation in the Sinai (al-Masry al-Youm, November 21). Colonel Mabrouk played a central role in taking down the Muslim Brotherhood leadership, arresting leading members such as Khayrat al-Shater, Essam al-Erian and Muhammad al-Beltagy. The spying charges actually predate Mursi’s removal as president; the case accusing Mursi and 13 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood of spying and illegal contacts with foreign entities was forwarded to prosecutors by the Ismailia Appeals Court on June 23 (al-Ahram Weekly, November 22).  Mabrouk was also expected to be the chief witness in a separate case regarding Mursi’s Hamas-assisted escape from Wadi al-Natrun prison five days after the January 25 Revolution.

According to the ABM statement, the killing was carried out by the Mu’tasim Bi-‘llah Battalion. This ABM faction is named for al-Mu’tasim Bi-‘llah, the eighth Abbasid caliph (795 – 842), known for his fighting skills and his campaigns against the Christian Byzantine Empire. As justification for the murder, the ABM statement cited an episode from the life of the Prophet Muhammad, in which the Prophet attacked and expelled the Jewish Banu Qaynuqa tribe after an incident in the market in which a Jewish goldsmith is said to have pinned the clothes of a Muslim woman so as to cause her to be stripped naked when she walked away. The Jewish merchant was immediately killed by a passing Muslim, who was in turn killed by a Jewish mob, leading to the Prophet’s eventual attack. [2] ABM asks, on the basis of this precedent, what alternative do Muslims have when faced with the detention and assault of hundreds of Muslim women?

Mabrouk’s funeral was attended by Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi, Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim and several other ministers and high officials. A three-day mourning period was announced by interim president Adli Mansour on November 20 (Egypt State Information Service, November 21). The Interior Ministry claims 152 “martyrs” have been lost to militant activities since Mursi’s June 30 overthrow.

Colonel Mabrouk was only the latest in a series of Interior Ministry personnel (many of whom conceal their identities and rarely work in the field) to be targeted by assassins. Revelations of the existence of “assassination lists” with the home addresses of intelligence officers involved in the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood are reported to have prompted a deadline of January for Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim to discover the leak in his Ministry (Ahram Online [Cairo], November 22; al-Ahram Weekly [Cairo], November 22).

On November 21, police in the Delta town of Qaha raided an apartment in search of two suspected terrorists wanted in connection to the murder of Colonel Mabrouk, the attempted assassination of Interior Minister Ibrahim and an attack on a Coptic church. The two were arrested only after a gunfight that killed police Captain Ahmad Samir al-Kabir (al-Masry al-Youm [Cairo], November 21; November 22).

On the following day, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior announced the arrest of the prime suspect in the Mabrouk assassination, Shady al-Manei, described as a leading member of Bayt al-Maqdis. Al-Manei was alleged to be a subordinate of Muslim Brotherhood deputy guide Muhammad Khayrat al-Shater (presently detained) and was previously imprisoned in connection with the 2005 Taba bombings before being released by ex-president Muhammad Mursi (Egypt State Information Service, November 23). Nabil Na’im, a fierce opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood and leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad from 1988 to 1992, has accused al-Shater, a prominent businessman, of funding ABM’s strikes on Egyptian security forces (al-Masry al-Youm [Cairo], September 9; for Khayrat al-Shater, see Militant Leadership Monitor, September 2013).

The Egyptian Army has not failed to respond to the ABM’s attacks on security personnel. On November 26, four black Army Humvees pursued and killed Shaykh Abu Munir (a.k.a. Muhammad Hussein Muhareb) and his son at al-Mehediya in the northeast Sinai. Abu Munir was an associate of ABM and a prime suspect in the brutal roadside murder of 25 police recruits dragged from their bus in August (Aswat Masriya [Cairo], November 26; Telegraph, November 26).

On November 20, ABM released the identity of the suicide bomber who attacked the South Sinai security directorate on October 7, killing five soldiers and wounding 50 others. The “martyr,” Muhammad Hamdan al-Sawarka (a.k.a. Abu Hajer), was a member of the Sawarka tribe, one of the Sinai’s largest. The ABM statement also criticized prominent Egyptian Salafist leaders for failing to resist the overthrow of Muhammad Mursi (al-Masry al-Youm [Cairo], November 20).

In his assessment of the Sinai campaign of the Egyptian security forces, Dr. Najih Ibrahim, a founding member of the extremist al-Gama’a al-Islamiya who has since renounced political violence, commented:

This campaign has largely succeeded. Without it, Egypt would have witnessed a long series of car bombings. We must admit that this military campaign prevented the arrival of this danger to the Nile Delta and to Cairo in a major way. Extremists in Sinai can equip a thousand booby-trapped cars and dispatch them to other areas in Egypt. The military campaign destroyed many mine and weapons stockpiles, and many of those who committed terrorist attacks were arrested. Many smuggling tunnels were closed and the sources of funding for these groups in the Sinai were controlled (As-Safir [Cairo], November 25).

Notes

1. Jama’at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, “Declaring our responsibility for assassinating the criminal Muhammad Mabrouk,” November 19, 2013, http://www.ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=47326

2. The incident is related in Ibn Hisham’s (died c. 830) Al-Sirah al-Nabawiyah , an edited version of Ibn Ishaq’s biography of the Prophet Muhammad (now lost).

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

Oil Exploration and Political Stalemate Threaten to Trigger Renewed Conflict in the Western Sahara

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Andrew McGregor

November 28, 2013

The decades-long unresolved conflict over the Western Sahara threatens to heat up again as Algeria and Morocco dispute the future of the region and young members of the Sahrawi Polisario Front (Frente Popular para la Liberación de Saguia el-Hamra y Río de Oro –Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia al-Hamra and Rio de Oro) urge a return to arms against Moroccan “occupiers” rather than spend further decades in refugee camps located in the remote Algerian desert. A general international indifference has preserved the political impasse, in which native Sahrawis demand a referendum on independence and the Moroccan administration offers regional autonomy within a “Greater Morocco.” Giving impetus to the return of the issue to international attention is the growing Moroccan exploitation of the Western Sahara’s resources, including phosphates, fisheries and, potentially, oil and gas.  Omar Mansour, a member of the Polisario’s National Secretariat, has warned: “If the U.N. does not take this seriously to ensure self-determination and that human rights are respected, then we are heading towards a war with regional implications” (Reuters, April 22).

Northwest Africa in the Colonial Period

Background

The Polisario Front was established in May, 1973 with the intent of expelling Spanish colonialists from the colony of Spanish Sahara (1884 – 1973). It gained strength in 1975 when locally-raised Spanish troops began to desert to the Polisario with their weapons. When Spain calculated the cost of retaining the colony in a world increasingly unsympathetic to colonial projects, it decided to defy a UN resolution and simply abandon the region, ceding the larger part of the colony, Saguia al-Hamra, to Morocco, with part of the Rio de Oro going to Mauritania in the 1975 Madrid Tripartite Accords.

The native Sahrawi resistance proclaimed the independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in 1976 in response, which Algeria soon recognized in the hope of preventing regional expansion by Morocco. The Sahrawis then launched a costly guerrilla campaign with Libyan support against both Morocco and Mauritania. By 1979, Mauritania, with limited resources and exhausted by years of fierce desert fighting, decided to abandon its claim to the southern Rio de Oro after a military junta arranged a ceasefire, though Morocco quickly stepped in to expand its own claim to the entire Rio de Oro. The Polisario Front was recognized by the UN as the official representative of the Sahrawi people in the same year. The Sahrawis’ conflict with Morocco became increasingly bitter, with both sides committing human rights abuses in a war the international community barely noticed.

Rabat offered to hold a referendum on independence in 1981, but soon withdrew the offer, deciding instead to build a huge and heavily garrisoned sand berm to isolate the Polisario guerrillas in the economically useless and uninhabited regions of the former colony. 1250 miles long and 15 to 30 feet high, the berm is equipped with sensors, landmines and surveillance equipment; any attempt to cross the berm brings out Moroccan fighter jets ready to attack infiltrators in open country. The berm separates inhabitable, resource rich land near the coast from the largely lifeless desert to which the rebel Sahrawis fled in the 1970s and 1980s.

This tactic effectively ended Polisario strikes in the Moroccan-held Western Sahara and forced a 1989 ceasefire. A 1991 ceasefire agreement called for a UN referendum asking Sahrawis whether they wanted independence or integration into Morocco. However, preparations for the referendum broke down when UN organizers experienced difficulty in determining who was or wasn’t eligible to vote from amongst the scattered Sahrawi population.  By this time, Morocco preferred the facts on the ground and has yet to conduct the referendum. Disappointed Polisario leaders have since referred to their homeland as “the last colony in Africa” (Sahara Press Service [al-Aaiun], October 31).

Growing Anger in the Refugee Camps

Cut off from the inhabitable parts of the Western Sahara, the exiled Sahrawis now live in six refugee camps housing 150,000 people centered around the Algerian town of Tindouf, home to an Algerian military base. Twenty-six thousand additional refugees live in Mauritania. The four main camps are named for towns in the Western Sahara – al-Aaiun, Smara, Awserd and Dakhla. “February 27” is a small camp and the administration is run from the Rabouni camp. There are reports of widespread malnutrition and related illnesses in the camps, which rely largely on shipments of food and other aid from the international community (Sahara Press Service [El-Aaiun], November 13).

Political development in the refugee camps has calcified, with government remaining in the hands of an old guard led by Muhammad Abdelaziz, who was elected as Polisario Front secretary-general and president of the Sahrawi Democratic Arab Republic in August 1976 and has remained in these posts ever since, ruling with the help of a small but powerful group of loyalists.

The sole political formation is the Polisario Front, a creation intended to put aside local political rivalries in the interests of presenting a common front demanding self-determination for the Western Sahara. However, this state of affairs is increasingly unable to restrain a growing number of youths (over 50% of the population in the camps is now under 18) who have never set foot in their “homeland,” see no future in the refugee camps and are growingly inclined to resume the armed conflict with Morocco in the face of the apparent satisfaction of the international community with the status quo.  As even President Abdelaziz concedes, “Patience has its limits” (Global Post, November 13).

Abdelaziz has been clear that renewing the armed conflict remains the legitimate right of Sahrawis, but is seeking to avoid new clashes with a far stronger power that could easily devastate the Sahrawi community in open warfare. Time is not working in favor of the Sahrawis holding out for independence in the refugee camps – with the gradual return of some refugees and a growing population of Moroccan migrants, the Western Saharan administrative capital of al-Aaiun alone now holds twice as many people as the combined refugee camps in Algeria.

Security in the camps is provided by Polisario internal security forces and the 6,000 to 7,000 man Ejercito de Liberación Popular Saharaui (ELPS – Sahrawi People’s Liberation Army), the military wing of the Polisario Front. The ELPS fields a variety of vintage Soviet equipment donated by Algeria and a range of equipment captured from the Spanish, Moroccans and Mauritanians. The Polisario administers its own justice and maintains its own detention facilities. Sahrawi dissidents accuse the movement of human rights abuses, including the torture and disappearance of dissidents (Sahara News, August 7).

Morocco has the upper hand in the constant propaganda warfare with the Polisario Front, disseminating its views and castigating the Polisario for alleged human rights abuses and purported ties to Islamist terrorist groups in a number of English-language websites designed to influence Western (especially American) opinion. For its part, the Polisario accuse Rabat of paying former refugees to produce lurid accounts of torture, illegal imprisonment and repression in the Polisario camps.

The Moroccan Approach

Morocco has devised a plan for regional autonomy as an alternative to holding a referendum on independence and has tried to gain international support for its claim by announcing an $18 billion investment plan intended to double the region’s GDP and create 120,000 jobs (African Energy, November 25).

Though efforts to obtain diplomatic recognition of its claim over the Western Sahara have faltered, Morocco has proceeded with the economic development of the territory based on an ambiguous legal ruling issued by the UN in 2002. Morocco inherited a major phosphates mining operation from Spain and is in negotiations with the EU to expand its fishing zone to include the profitable waters of Western Sahara. Now Kosmos Energy and partner Cairn Energy plan to begin oil exploration in a Moroccan-licensed offshore block next year. This latest development has enraged the Polisario Front, which stated that it was against “exploiting the sovereign resources of the Saharawi people without their consent while we remain under an illegal occupation… Western Sahara remains occupied as a matter of international law and so the taking of petroleum is clearly a war crime” (African Energy, November 25).

Map Showing the Division of the Western Sahara by the Berm

Diplomatic Tensions Between Morocco and Algeria

Despite Morocco’s efforts to depict an atmosphere of calm satisfaction in the Western Sahara, demonstrations in al-Aaiun demanding the immediate withdrawal of Moroccan forces from the Western Sahara and an end to resource exploitation in the region erupted into clashes with police as the protesters raised the banned Sahrawi flag during an October visit by Christopher Ross, the UN Secretary General’s envoy to the Western Sahara (Sahara Press Service [al-Aaiun], November 12).  The Polisario claimed over 100 injured during a crackdown by authorities, but local government in al-Aaiun claimed the incident involved only “children who wanted to throw stones at the security forces”(Agencia EFE [Madrid], October 20). Pro-Moroccan sources accused “infiltrators” of disguising themselves in Moroccan police uniforms before entering homes, abusing residents and looting valuables (Polisario-Confidential.org, October 24).

In an October 29 speech (read on his behalf by Algerian justice minister Tayeb Louh), Algerian president Abdelaziz urged new responsibilities for the UN peacekeeping force operating in the Western Sahara: “The necessity to set up a human rights monitoring mechanism in Western Sahara is more topical than ever… Algeria remains convinced that the expansion of the MINURSO (Misión de las Naciones Unidas para la Organización de un Referéndum en el Sáhara Occidental – United Nations Mission for Referendum in Western Sahara) mandate to include human rights monitoring is a necessity” (Sahara Press Service [al-Aaiun], October 29). At present, MINURSO does not include human rights monitors amongst its roughly 250 uniformed and civilian personnel.

An outraged Morocco recalled its ambassador to Algeria on October 30, though Algiers described the move as “an unfortunate decision based and spurious motives and detrimental to the sovereignty of Algeria” (Institute for Security Studies [Addis Ababa], November 11). Bouteflika’s remarks were interpreted by Moroccan foreign minister Salaheddine Mezouar as an indication of Algeria’s direct involvement in trying to influence the West Sahara issue and its “calculated plans” to challenge Morocco’s territorial integrity (al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 8). Morocco’s monarchist Istiqlal Party issued renewed calls for the government to retake the southeastern provinces of Tindouf and Bechar, transferred to Algeria by France during the colonial era. Algerian foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra called Istiqlal’s statement “totally unacceptable and irresponsible” (al-Arabiya/AFP, October 30; North Africa Post, October 31). Morocco tried unsuccessfully to retake the provinces as part of its “Greater Morocco” strategy in 1963’s “Sand War” with Algeria. The war did, however, see the introduction of massive defensive sand berms by Morocco, a tactic later successfully applied in Western Sahara to isolate the Polisario.

Morocco’s King Muhammad VI declared that his nation would not be lectured to by “those who systematically trample on human rights.” Bouteflika’s remarks also sparked a November 1 (Algeria’s national day) demonstration outside the Algerian consulate in Casablanca in which a young Moroccan member of the Jeunnesses Royalistes (Royal Youth) tore down the Algerian flag in the consulate compound. Though authorities charged the individual, Foreign Minister Lamamra protested that the detainee was treated as a hero in some quarters of Morocco and termed the incident an “insult” to Algeria (AFP, November 14; North Africa Post, November 11). Lamamra, a veteran diplomat, is considered an expert on the West Saharan issue and can be expected to take a hardline on the matter. Algeria’s press called the incident a deliberate provocation and “an attack on the sovereignty of the country” (Le Jeune Indépendant [Algiers], November 2; Le Quotidien d’Oran, November 2). The Polisario Front jumped into the dispute as well, expressing its “outrage against this despicable act which once again confirms the contempt of the Moroccan State in respect of international law, values of brotherhood and good neighborliness and diplomatic practice” (L’Expression [Algiers], November 6).

In a speech given on November 6, the 38th anniversary of the “Green March” that claimed the Western Sahara for Morocco, King Muhammad VI accused Algeria of paying various human rights organizations to produce reports critical of Morocco’s administration in the Western Sahara. Other critics “unfairly and inimically believe anyone who claims that his rights were trampled or that he was tortured,” adding that all nations had the right to preserve their own security in the face of dangers. Referring to the Polisario specifically, the King said: “Anybody who takes issue with Morocco only has to go down to Tindouf and witness violations to the most basic of human rights…” (Al Monitor, November 8).

Bouteflika’s position on human rights monitoring in the Western Sahara was nearly identical to that advanced by the United States at the UN in April before angry reaction from Rabat and Paris convinced Washington to move more quietly on the issue.  Rabat is extremely sensitive to accusations of human rights abuses in Western Sahara, going so far as to declare the UN Secretary General’s envoy to Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, persona non grata in Morocco after he made a statement on the issue last year.

The Western Sahara issue has prevented the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) from achieving anything of consequence, with its two largest members at permanent odds. There are very real costs associated with this disharmony: according to the African Economic Commission, a functioning Maghreb Union would result in a five percent growth of GDP in each of the five member nations, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania (al-Jazeera, July 31). Bachir Mustapha Essayd, a member of the Polisario’s National Secretariat, recently suggested that the 1975 Madrid Agreement and Morocco’s interpretation of it pose a significant obstacle in developing relationships between Maghreb region nations: “Morocco is the only [country] responsible for the instability in the region… These agreements stand as an obstacle to all Maghreb countries… Spain gave territory to Morocco that did not belong to it” (Sahara Press Service [al-Aaiun], November 14).

The border between Algeria and Morocco was closed in 1994 after Rabat accused Algeria’s secret services and the Islamist militant Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA) of the bombing of a hotel in Marrakesh in which two Spaniards were killed. Algeria in turn accused Rabat of hosting the GIA and the border has been closed (except to an active smuggling trade) ever since.

A Growing Security Threat?

Cooperation between Morocco and Algeria on security issues and other matters has reached low ebb. A mid-November conference of 17 regional foreign ministers hosted by Rabat and intended to strengthen border security in north and west Africa was forced to go ahead without the presence of an Algerian deputation, a crippling absence given that Algeria is the largest and most powerful nation in the region (Middle East Online, November 14). Regional security efforts mean little when the two strongest militaries in the region refuse to cooperate.

Malian foreign minister Tiéman Coulibaly claimed in March that the al-Qaeda-associated Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) was recruiting Sahrawi youths from the refugee camps as mercenaries (LeMag [Marrakesh], March 16). A Sahrawi was among those captured after the battle in northern Mali in which AQIM commander Abu Zeid was killed (Le Figaro [Paris], March 1). There are also reports that Sahrawis from the Polisario camps are participating in smuggling networks that cross the region, though it appears that the opportunity for young unemployed Sahrawis to make money is a greater factor than ideology in leading individuals to the criminal and terrorist networks operating in the Sahel-Sahara region. The camps remain a potential source of militants for AQIM and MUJWA, but at the present, young Sahrawi youth appear to be more interested in resuming a nationalist fight against Morocco than in joining the global jihad.

The kidnapping of three European aid workers from the Tindouf camp by AQIM operatives in October, 2011 appeared to be a sign that the North African jihad was beginning to encroach on the Sahrawi refugee camps, with Moroccan sources suggesting the abductions were carried out by Polisario itself in league with jihadists working under the late Amir Abu Zeid (Polisario-confidential.org, December 2, 2011; AFP, October 30, 2011). Pro-Moroccan sources said the kidnappings had confirmed “the active complicity between Polisario elements and AQIM,” though incriminating details were not forthcoming (Polisario-confidential.org, November 14, 2011). The hostages were eventually freed in Mali in July, 2012 after payment of a ransom.

Cooperation between the secular Polisario Front and the Islamist extremists of the type suggested by Morocco seems unlikely – as Polisario president Muhammad Abdelaziz notes, the Islamists don’t consider Polisario to be a Muslim movement: “They will not forgive us for being a democratic movement. They will not forgive us for having equality for men and women” (PBS, October 25).

Conclusion

Growing resource development and the spread of Islamist militancy in the region are both capable of either intensifying the Western Sahara conflict or compelling a final settlement. The existing ceasefire has allowed the West, the UN and the African Union to assign a low priority to such a settlement, but changing conditions will demand action on this front. Renewed U.S. and French interest in resolving the problem is a promising development, but both parties will have to deal with the competing narratives offered by Morocco (an independent Western Sahara will represent a regional security threat) and the Polisario and their Algerian sponsors (Sahrawis have the right to self-determination as mandated by the United Nations). Should international indifference continue, the leaders of the Polisario Front will experience growing difficulty in keeping frustrated Sahrawi youth trapped in the camps of Tindouf from renewing the armed struggle and shattering the political solidarity and common purpose that is the cornerstone of the Polisario Front. Given that the resumption of such a conflict using guerrilla tactics would be largely futile against Moroccan defenses and overall military might, this would raise the possibility asymmetric tactics such as bombings, assassinations and kidnappings could be introduced to press Morocco to accept a vote on self-determination. Though the Salafist-Jihadist ideology has yet to make significant inroads in the refugee camps, an assault on the Polisario political consensus would likely create new political/militant formations, some of which might be agreeable to accepting assistance from the Islamist militants operating in the region.

This article first appeared in the November 28, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Merger of Northern Mali Rebel Movements Creates Political Distance from Islamist Militants

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Andrew McGregor

November 14, 2013

Proclaiming that the move was the only means of securing peace in northern Mali, the three largest rebel movements in the region announced their merger on November 4. The merger brings together the normally hostile members of one Arab militia, the Mouvement Arabe de l’Azawad (MAA), and two Tuareg groups, the secular Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) and the Haut Conseil pour l’Unité de l’Azawad (HCUA), which contains many former members of the al-Qaeda-allied Islamist Ansar al-Din movement.  No name has been chosen for the new movement, which will be effective “within 45 days” after approval had been given by the membership of each group (Soir de Bamako, November 4; al-Jazeera, November 5; AFP, November 5). The rebel movements are looking to present a united front after withdrawing from peace talks with the central government on September 26. Reports of a forthcoming decision to merge, undertaken by delegations of the three groups based at the now-suspended peace talks in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou, were given a hostile reception by groups of youths in Kidal (Maliactu.net, November 1). 

French Chief-of-Staff Admiral Guillaud Reviews Malian Troops (RP Defense)

In Bamako, there are fears that jihadists are re-infiltrating the north to recover weapons caches buried beneath the sand, as well as concerns about what much of the Malian press regards as duplicity from Paris in dealing with the north – the locally so-called “Dutch policy” (in reference to French president François Hollande), under which Paris is accused of arranging a separate deal with the MNLA with only a symbolic presence in Kidal from the Malian national government (L’Annonceur [Bamako], November 7; Maliactu.net, October 30; Les Échos [Bamako], November 6). During a recent visit to Mali, French Armed Forces chief-of-staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud expressed the ambivalence in France’s relationship with the MNLA rebels by saying that “France is neither pro, nor anti-MNLA.” Admiral Guillaud was reported to have discussed a defense agreement between the French and Malian militaries of a type unique to the former French colonies in Africa. Guillaud also promised to maintain French air support, Special Forces units in northern Mali and an operational headquarters at the Bamako-Senou International Airport (Maliactu.net, October 17; L’Essor [Bamako], October 10).

The Arab MAA was formed in February 2012 (initially under the name Front de Libération Nationale de l’Azawad – FLNA) as a self-defense militia incorporating members of earlier Arab militias and Arab soldiers of the Malian Army who deserted after the fall of Timbuktu to Islamist groups last year (For clashes between the MNLA and MAA, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, June 3).

Despite the merger, the MNLA was accused of mounting a November 8 attack on a Malian military patrol in Egazargane, roughly 86 miles from the town of Menaka, though it is possible the clash was the result of a disagreement that followed a small collision between vehicle belonging to the army and the MNLA, respectively (Maliactu.net, November 8; AFP, November 10).

Efforts to arrive at a settlement in northern Mali have been further complicated by the abduction and murder on November 2 of two French nationals working for Radio France Internationale, Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon. Malian intelligence sources have said the kidnapping was the work of Baye Ag Bakabo, an ethnic Tuareg who was a low-level member of Abd al-Karim al-Targui’s unit of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) before he was expelled on suspicion of stealing money. In this regard, the kidnappings may have been a failed attempt to compensate al-Targui through significant ransoms for the two journalists and work his way back into the group, a scenario suggested by Bakabo’s relations in Kidal (Journal du Mali, November 9; AP, November 6). Al-Targui is a prime suspect in a number of high-profile abductions carried out in recent years in northern Mali. A statement issued by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for the abductions and murders as “a response to crimes committed by France against Malians and the work of African and international forces against the Muslims of Azawad” (Sahara Media [Nouakchott], November 6). There was speculation from military sources that Baye ag Bakabo had joined the MNLA in the interests of obscuring his past engagement with AQIM (Maliactu.net, November 8). Many Tuareg have displayed a notable fluidity in their organizational allegiance.

The two French nationals were seized outside the home of an MNLA official in Kidal that they had planned to interview. The pursuit of the kidnappers started quickly and in force, with ground troops on the trail being assisted by two Rafale fighter-jets diverted from another operation in northern Mali and a pair of helicopters dispatched from the air-strip at Tessalit (Le Monde, November 8). Although the kidnappers escaped, the bodies of the two journalists were discovered, killed either through panic on the part of their abductors or on the orders of al-Targui as pursuers closed in.  Nine militants were reported to have been arrested in connection with the case on November 8 (Reuters, November 8).

MNLA vice-president Mahamadou Djeri Maiga said the movement had been “humiliated” by the abductions and were further concerned by the attitude of security authorities, who have declined offers of assistance from the MNLA in finding the perpetrators, though the movement is making its own enquiries: “We will share our results with those responsible for the case. We cannot sit idly by and do nothing” (AFP, November 4). The deaths of the journalists have been used in some quarters in Bamako to argue that the Tuareg movements are incapable of administering Kidal or Azawad as autonomous regions (Le Pays [Ouagadougou], November 6). A French government spokesman said on November 4 that France would “probably” increase its military presence in Mali in response to the slayings (Maliactu.net, November 4).

Bamako has backed off from its prior insistence that all arrest warrants issued for leading Tuareg rebels be carried out prior to arriving at a settlement for the north. On October 29, the central government announced it was lifting arrest warrants issued for Ibrahim ag Muhammad Assaleh of the MNLA and Ahmada ag Bibi and brothers Muhammad and Alghabass ag Intallah of the HCUA, the latter pair being the sons of the powerful leader of the Ifoghas Tuareg of Kidal, Intallah ag Attaher (for Alghabass ag Intallah, see Militant Leadership Monitor, January 2013). The reason given was the measure was needed to “facilitate the pursuit of the process of national reconciliation” (AFP, October 29). Ag Bibi and the Intallah brothers are all candidates in the November 24 parliamentary elections.

A number of Malian and African human rights organizations have opposed lifting the arrest warrants, claiming they would promote a climate of impunity for individuals accused of serious crimes, such as war, crimes, murder, rebellion and terrorism. According to the leader of the Malian Association of Human Rights, a political solution to the Mali crisis “cannot be at the expense of the victims of the crisis or the independence of the judiciary” (L’Essor [Bamako], October 24).

Further talks with the rebel movements are scheduled to take place this month, but Bamako’s position has been consistent – it will not consider autonomy for the north under any circumstances.

This article was first published in the November 14, 2013 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

Unilateral Referendum in Contested Oil Producing Abyei Region Overwhelmingly in Favor of Joining South Sudan

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Andrew McGregor

October 31, 2013

Ngok Dinka residents of the oil-rich but disputed border territory of Abyei have voted by a margin of more than 99% to join the Bahr al-Ghazal region of South Sudan rather than the South Kordofan region of Sudan in a three-day vote (October 27-29) that defied many predictions by being carried out peacefully and without major disturbances despite being boycotted by the other main ethnic group in the region, the Arab Missiriya tribe. Only 12 voters were reported to have cast a vote to join Sudan in a process to which foreign media were granted full access in order to verify transparency , though no international observers were present (Sudan Tribune, October 31).

(Africa Confidential)

Many Ngok Dinka displaced by attacks by the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in May 2008 and May 2011 were reported to have returned home to take part in the vote (Reuters, October 31). The borders of Abyei were redrawn by an international arbitration tribunal in 2009 to neither side’s satisfaction, though the most productive oil fields (the Heglig zone) were separated from a diminished Abyei and attached to Sudan’s South Kordofan province (RFI, July 22, 2009).

The semi-nomadic Missiriya spend much of the year in the Sudanese province of South Kordofan, but rely on the 10,000 square kilometer region of Abyei for dry-season grazing for their herds as part of a centuries-old migratory pattern. The Missiriya include a core of well-armed and experienced fighters who are determined not to allow new borders to interfere with their traditional way of life. Missiriya tribal leader Mukhtar Babo Nimr described the vote as “an illegal process,” adding that “We in the Missiriya tribe are committed to the official position of the Sudanese government…Abyei is a northern land that belongs to Sudan and we are on it and will continue to live there because it is our land” (Reuters, October 31). The Missiriya have promised to hold their own referendum in response to the vote by the Ngok Dinka (Sudan Tribune, October 31). Missiriya militias known as Murahileen have been armed and sponsored by Khartoum since the 1970s, initially as a means of applying pressure on South Sudanese separatists by attacking agricultural communities along the north-south border.

The vote was not supported by either Khartoum or Juba, nor was it recognized by any element of the international community. The vote was initially backed by the African Union, which later withdrew its support over complaints of “obstruction” by Khartoum, which opposed the vote (Reuters, October 29). The referendum was intended to replace a scheduled 2011 vote on Abyei’s future allegiance meant to be coincidental to South Sudan’s vote on independence that was cancelled due to unrest in the region, questions over who would be allowed to vote and tensions between Juba and Khartoum. 65,000 Ngok Dinka were registered for the vote, which was non-binding. The vote was carried out by the Abyei Referendum High Committee.

Abyei’s location in the Muglad Basin once made it one of Sudan’s most productive regions for high-quality oil production, but reserves are now in decline due to intensive production in the 1990s.  The dispute over Abyei’s status dates to 1905, when the Anglo-Egyptian administration of Sudan transferred the “area of the nine Ngok Dinka chieftains” from the southern Bahr al-Ghazal province to the northern province of South Kordofan. Relations between the Ngok Dinka and the Missiriya were amicable until the outbreak of the 1956-1972 North-South civil war, when the Ngok Dinka sided largely with the southern Anyanya separatist movement. When the conflict resumed in 1983, the Ngok Dinka again sided with the Southern opposition, this time in the form of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M).

Security in Abyei is currently provided by the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNIFSA), a mostly Ethiopian contingent of over 5300 troops commanded by Ethiopian Major General Yohannes Gebremeskel Tesfamariam. [1] The force was established by UN Security Council resolution 1990 on June 27, 2011 in response to widespread violence in the region.

Though the results of the unilateral referendum are entirely symbolic, they may help provide the impetus necessary to attract the interest of the UN Security Council in working out a final solution for the disputed territory.

Note

1. For UNIFSA, see http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unisfa/

Low Expectations Surround Lebanese Military Deployment in Tripoli

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Andrew McGregor

October 31, 2013

The latest intervention of the Lebanese Army into the coastal city of Tripoli to force an end to armed clashes between the impoverished Sunni Bab al-Tebbaneh and the Alawite Jabal Muhsin districts of Tripoli has not been accompanied by high expectations. The military is making its 18th intervention in Tripoli since May, 2008, with none of the earlier operations so far having had any significant impact on the sectarian conflict between the two neighborhoods. The Army is already overstretched in dealing with security disturbances across Lebanon, including cross-border shelling by both sides in the Syrian conflict, engagements with Sunni gunmen in southern Lebanon and a wave of car bombings. Tripoli, a city of roughly 200,000 people, is 80% Sunni with Christian and Alawite minorities making up the difference.

The latest round of violence began on October 21 following a televised speech by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in which the Syrian leader appeared to say Jabal Muhsin was part of Syria, forcing the Lebanese Army to return to the city to restore order (al-Manar TV [Beirut], October 23; al-Sharq al-Awsat, October 29). Sniper fire from both sides greeted the arrival of the troops, who acting Prime Minister Najib Mikati said would “be strict and impartial” in dealing with the ongoing violence (al-Jazeera, October 28). Seventeen people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in fighting that has derailed a forthcoming disarmament campaign in the city (al-Jazeera, October 28). Intense at times, the conflict has seen the use of rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and mortars.

Lebanese troops moved further into the conflict zone on October 29. After a short and relative calm, fighting broke out again on the evening of October 30 after Al-Hizb al-Arabi al-Dimuqrati (HAD – Arab Democratic Party) founder Ali Eid (father of HAD secretary-general and effective current leader Rifaat al-Eid) was called in for questioning by the Internal Security Forces’ (ISF) Information Branch in connection with the bombings. The HAD declared that the call was nothing less than the declaration of “a new war against Jabal Mohsen” (Daily Star [Beirut], October 31).

In the 1980s, Syrian support allowed the HAD and its armed wing of the time, al-Fursan al-Hammur al-Arabi‎, to develop Jabal Muhsin as a strategic stronghold overlooking the city of Tripoli, giving the small Alawite community an enormous advantage over the more numerous Sunnis. While the ongoing civil war in Syria has inflamed tensions in Tripoli, it is not solely responsible for inter-communal clashes that have practically become a way of life in parts of Tripoli over nearly four decades.

Preliminary investigations into the twin car bombings of Tripoli’s Sunni al-Salam and al-Taqwa mosques that killed 47 people on August 23 indicated the bombings had been carried out by elements from Jabal Muhsin with the support of Syrian intelligence services. The summons for Ali Eid came after Ahmad Muhammad Ali, a personal guard and driver for HAD leader Rifaat Eid, confessed to army intelligence that, working under Rifaat Eid’s orders, he had helped Ahmad Merhi flee to Syria from Jabal Muhsin (Daily Star [Beirut], October 30). Merhi has been identified as the driver who planted the car bomb outside the Taqwa mosque. Rifaat Eid, meanwhile, has suggested that the charges were prompted by Saudi demands as a means of taking revenge for Hezbollah participation in the Syrian conflict (al-Safir [Beirut], October 18).

Seven suspects in the bombings were charged by a military prosecutor on October 14, though four of the suspects remain at large. One of the detainees, HAD associate Yusuf Diab, is reported to have confessed to driving the car bomb that exploded outside al-Salam mosque (Daily Star [Beirut], October 14). Ziad Allouki, a leading Sunni militia leader in Bab al-Tebbaneh, has warned of intensified clashes if the Army does not arrest Rifaat al-Eid in connection with the August mosque bombings (Daily Star [Beirut], October 28).

Sunni Gunmen in Bab al-Tebanneh  (AFP/Joseph Eid)

Former Prime Minister and Future Movement head Sa’ad Hariri has been especially critical of government efforts to restore order in Tripoli as well as Syria’s “dirty war” in the city:

Is it acceptable for the Lebanese Army with its elite units to become a false witness in the war against Tripoli? Is it right for security agencies and local officials to monitor the situation and announce their inability to confront the dangers in the city? … As for us, we will not be silent toward the injustice in Tripoli … we hold the state with all its official, security and military agencies fully responsible for abandoning the city and its residents and leaving it an arena for such armed chaos (Daily Star [Beirut], October 28).

Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah weighed in on the conflict on October 28, proclaiming his support for the military intervention, but expressing the hope that the residents of Tripoli would cooperate with the security forces rather than call for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Jabhat al-Nusra to enter from Syria and interfere, “as that complicates the situation and does not resolve it.” Nasrallah said that the state “knows a lot about the cells whose aim is to inflame the situation in Lebanon” but had taken no action against them.

Druze leader and Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader Walid al-Jumblatt has expressed astonishment at the futility of the endless political violence and the belief of some that “clashes between Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Muhsin will change the course of bloody developments in Syria or will alter the existing dynamics in this conflict (Daily Star [Beirut], October 28).

The fighting in Tripoli appears to be closely connected to the launch of the long-delayed Qalamun offensive by the Syrian Army, which is designed to drive rebel groups from Syria’s east Lebanon (or “Anti-Lebanon”) mountains, in particular the Saudi-backed Liwa al-Islam of Zahran Alloush, which fields over 3,000 fighters and 23 T-72 tanks (al-Safir [Beirut], October 18).  Once the campaign begins in earnest, Tripoli will become important as both a supply point and place of refuge if things turn bad for Sunni rebels operating in the Anti-Lebanon.

The situation in Tripoli may soon be further complicated by the entry of the Ahrar Tripoli, a new Sunni militia being formed by former ISF director Ashraf Rifi. The project is reported to have Saudi funding under the direct supervision of Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan (al-Akhbar [Beirut], October 29).

Lebanon has been ruled by a caretaker government since March that appears to not have the will, the ability or the mandate to restore security and stability to an ever more volatile situation. Tripoli’s mayor, Nadir Ghazal, has complained that Tripoli was “dying” from the continuous outbreaks of fighting in the city (Daily Star [Beirut], October 30).

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

Moroccan Militants and the Syrian Jihad

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Andrew McGregor

October 18, 2013

A recent al-Qaeda video and Syria’s growing anti-Alawite jihad have raised alarms in Morocco, where a traditional monarchy is attempting to resist efforts to Islamize the nation’s society and government.

The 41-minute video, entitled “Morocco – The Kingdom of Corruption and Despotism,” was produced by al-Andalus, the media arm of the Algerian-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and calls on young people in Morocco to rise up in jihad to implement Shari’a throughout the northwest African country. The video focuses on the allegedly corrupt monarchy of King Mohammed VI, which is described by AQIM leader Musab Abd al-Wadoud as supporting a “Jewish-Crusader union” and being “a traitor to Allah and his Prophet and all his believers” (Reuters, September 17). Footage within the video contrasted the King’s enormous wealth with the desperate conditions of Morocco’s slums and shantytowns. The video also cites a 2009 Forbes magazine article describing the king’s enormous wealth and a 2012 book by Catherine Graciet and Eric Laurent that profiles the inner workings of the court and the concentration of wealth amongst the king’s family and close associates. [1] The King’s family, known as the Alaouite dynasty, has ruled Morocco since 1666.

Ali Anouzla, the director of independent Moroccan news website Lakome.com was arrested on September 17 for posting a link to the video as carried by the website of Spanish daily El Pais. There are suspicions that the real reason for the arrest and the threat of a six-year prison sentence under Morocco’s anti-terrorism legislation was Anouzla’s critical coverage of monarch Mohammed VI, a taboo for most of Morocco’s generally tame media. El Pais removed the link after the Moroccan government complained to Madrid; YouTube similarly removed the video from its website after determining it broke the site’s guidelines on inciting violence. A statement from Reporters sans Frontières claimed that Moroccan authorities “have shown that they are confusing journalism with inciting terrorist acts” (Reporters sans Frontières Press Release, September 26).

On June 21, eight residents of the Spanish enclave of Ceuta (a deeply impoverished coastal remnant of Spain’s Moroccan Empire) were detained on charges of recruiting individuals for the Syrian jihad. All eight of the detainees are Spanish citizens. After the eight were arrested, a video was released calling for “divine punishment” of the police agents of the Policia Nacional and the Guardia Civil made the arrests. The families of the security agents were also threatened in the video, which was believed to have originated in a mosque in Benzu, near Cueta’s border with Morocco (20minutos.es, July 31). Most of those recruited for jihad in Syria travel through Spain to Turkey, where they are infiltrated across the border to bases near Latakia (El Pais [Madrid], June 27, 2012). Five of those recruited by the Ceuta cell are believed to have perished in suicide attacks.

Belgian authorities arrested Moroccan national Ismail Abd al-Latif Allal on September 26. Allal, the subject of an international arrest warrant, was described by the Spanish Interior Ministry as the organizer of a network that recruited Spanish and Moroccan youths for jihad in Syria. Earlier in September, Spanish security forces arrested two other Moroccan recruiters for Syria’s Islamist Jabhat al-Nusra movement, Muhammad al-Bal and Yassine Ahmad Larbi (a.k.a. Pistu).

Salafist-Takfiri groups have established themselves in the shantytowns outside urban centers such as Fez, Marrakesh, Tangiers and Casablanca, where displaced populations try to survive outside the traditional communal support systems or government services available in the impoverished inner city neighborhoods. These shantytowns are the source of most of the suicide bombers and other extremists that have emerged in Morocco in the last decade.  

Moroccan Jihadists in Latakia, Syria   (Magharebia)

Veteran jihadist and former Guantanamo inmate Brahim Benchekroune (a.k.a. Abu Ahmad al-Muhajir) formed a new al-Qaeda-sympathetic movement in late August under the name Harakat Sham al-Islam. The movement’s apparent purpose is to recruit fighters for the Syrian jihad while establishing a militant force within Morocco that could utilize the military experience of fighters returning from Syria and Mali. Moroccan authorities continue to arrest any individuals suspected of having returned from jihad activities abroad.

Moroccan fighters have suffered heavy losses in Syria, including commanders such as Muhammad al-Alami Suleymani (a.k.a. Abu Hamza al-Maghrebi), who was killed in August. A video released by Sham al-Islam in mid-September depicted the death and funeral of al-Alami, a former Guantanamo inmate who was released in 2006. Also shown in the video is Ibrahim bin Shakaran, another former Guantanamo detainee who is now a combat leader in Syria. [2]

A new Islamist-led government was formed in Morocco on October 10 when Abdelilah Benkirane’s Parti de la justice et du développement (PJD) created a new, broad-based coalition to end that left several important posts (such as the Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Ministry) in the hands of pro-monarchists. The Islamist PJD has taken steps to distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood to avoid the political turmoil that followed the election of Islamists in Egypt and Tunisia (Arab News, October 13).

Notes

1. Catherine Graciet and Eric Laurent, Le Roi Predateur, Editions de Seuil, Paris, 2012.

2. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f04x2zxmZtg

This article first appeared in the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor on October 18, 2013

Al-Qaeda Strikes U.S. Drone Base in Yemen’s Hadramawt Governorate

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Andrew McGregor

October 18, 2013

Yemen’s al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has claimed that its September 30 attack on a military base in eastern Yemen was focused on the destruction of an American drone operations command-and-control room. In its statement, AQAP said that its attack was directed against an “intelligence and operations room” at the Mukalla air base and promised that further attacks on American drone installations would follow: “Such joint security targets, which participate with the Americans in their war on the Muslim people, are a legitimate target for our operations, and we will puncture these eyes that the enemy uses” (Shumukh al-Islam, October 14). However, Yemeni officials denied that any American drone operations room existed at the base, saying the command-and-control room there was dedicated exclusively to anti-piracy operations in the Arabian Sea (Reuters, October 14).

Mukalla, Yemen

AQAP’s claim referred to an attack by Islamist militants on the headquarters of the Yemen Army’s Second Military Region at the port of Mukalla, capital of Yemen’s eastern Hadramawt governorate. The operation began with the detonation of a car-bomb at the entrance gate of the base, followed by the infiltration of militants disguised as Yemeni Special Forces personnel (Saba [Sana’a], September 30; Yemen Post, October 3). The tactic created massive confusion at the base, allowing the militants to seize a number of soldiers as hostages before taking taking refuge in a three-storey building.

The military responded with a fierce counter-attack that deployed Special Forces troops from Sana’a using RPGs, missiles and fire from four tanks that destroyed much of the installation during a three-day standoff. Four soldiers were reported killed and nine wounded in the effort to re-take the base from Islamist militants who claimed to have killed dozens of officers in the initial attack (Mukalla2011.net, October 1; Felix News Agency, October 5; Reuters, October 14; Yemen Post, October 3).

The attack came only days after AQAP strikes in southern Yemen killed 31 soldiers and policemen in southern Yemen (Reuters, September 30). Other air bases have been targeted by AQAP this year, including al-Anad airbase in Lahj governorate, where three pilots were killed by gunmen on motorcycles only days after the base’s gas tanks were set ablaze (Yemen Times, May 9).

Not long after the attack on the Hadramawt military headquarters, a senior intelligence officer was killed in Mukalla on October 10 (Yemen Post, October 11). AQAP’s assassination campaign has claimed the lives of some 90 senior officers of Yemen’s security forces since the 2011 uprising against the regime of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen Observer, September 1).

Yemen’s current president, Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi, reported that he has requested the provision of armed drones from the United States, saying that the American drone attacks have “widely curtailed al-Qaeda activities” while describing claims of significant civilian casualties as “exaggerated” (SABA [Sana’a], August 22; Yemen Online, August 24). While the Yemeni request for armed drones remains under consideration, Yemen’s air force took delivery of two American surveillance aircraft in mid-September (AP, September 16).

Despite the president’s enthusiasm for armed drones, there have been calls in Yemen for a review of the nation’s counterterrorism strategy to address the root causes of Islamist extremism rather than continuing the pursuit of an exclusively military response. In Hadramawt, the influential Imam Abu al-Harith Omar bin Salim Bawazir has claimed some success in persuading militants to abandon al-Qaeda’s ideology and “distorted” approach to Islam, though he complains of a lack of support for these efforts from authorities (Yemen Post, October 11). Local human rights groups in Hadramawt have also complained of the “negative effects” of American drone strikes in the region (Mukalla Online, October 10). Yemeni sources indicate that over 30 American drone strikes on suspected militants have taken place in Yemen since the beginning of the year (Felix News Agency, September 1).

While the internal debate in Yemen over the use of American drones continues, the Sahelian nation of Niger has requested the deployment of American armed drones in that country to “collect intelligence and conduct operations” against Islamist militants who took refuge in Niger after being driven out of northern Mali by joint French-African Union military operations (Reuters, September 19).

This article first appeared in the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor on October 18, 2013

Westgate Mall Attack Demonstrates al-Shabaab’s Desperation, Not Strength

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Andrew McGregor

Jamestown Foundation Hot Issue, September 23, 2013

Expelled from their main sources of financing, consumed by internal disputes and under constant pressure from African Union troops in the field, Somalia’s al-Shabaab movement and its leader Abdi Godane “Abu Zubayr” have rolled the dice with a massive attack on civilians in Nairobi with the future of the Shabaab movement as the stakes.

GarissaKenyan Security Forces Try to Secure the Westgate Mall

Having already lost vital revenues provided by the movement’s control of the markets of Mogadishu and the port of Kismayo, Kenya’s support for a new, autonomous administration in southern Somalia threatens to deprive Shabaab of operational mobility in one of its last strongholds. Unable to confront Kenyan troops in the field, al-Shabaab’s strategic response was the formulation of a devastating strike at a soft target in the heart of Kenya – Nairobi’s upscale Westgate Mall, a gathering place for foreign expatriates and well-to-do Kenyans alike. The result was over 60 civilians killed and 200 wounded. At least three Kenyan servicemen have died, with another eight wounded (Nairobi Standard, September 24).

Al-Shabaab spokesman Shaykh Ali Mahmud Raage (a.k.a. Ali Dheere) insisted the movement was in communication with the fighters in the mall while making the reason for the attack clear: “We have several times told the Kenya government to withdraw its forces from the Muslim land of Somalia but they gave no attention to our warnings” (Raxanreeb.com, September 31). The movement has had a communications strategy in place throughout the attack, giving progress reports on the “mujahideen” inside the mall that at times have been more in tune with reality than the optimistic reports issued by the Kenyan government. The movement at all times stated its disinterest in any type of negotiation, confirming the attack’s punitive nature. Promises have been made by al-Shabaab via Twitter to release statements recorded in the Westgate Mall by individuals involved in the attack, all of whom “spoke comfortably and praised Allah to have been chosen for such an operation.” [1]

Independent press coverage of the situation was hampered by government requests for live transmissions from the site to cease and for people outside the mall to stop efforts to communicate to people still believed to be within the building (Nairobi Star, September 21).

The assault on the mall consisted of a two-pronged attack by heavily armed gunmen carrying AK-47assault rifles and ammunition belts. Many of the attackers appeared to be ethnic-Somali, thought it is unknown yet whether the attackers were Kenyan nationals from largely ethnic-Somali northeast Kenya or Somali nationals. Chief of the Kenyan Defense Forces General Julius Karangi maintains that the gunmen were of different nationalities, including ethnic-Somalis with dual nationality (AFP, September 24). There is a cross-border traffic in ethnic-Somali militants in the poorly regulated border Kenyan-Somali frontier – five Kenyan nationals who had traveled to Kismayo without documents to join al-Shabaab were arrested shortly after the Westgate Mall attack (Xinhua, September 22). There continue to be rumors of American and other foreign nationals taking part in the attack, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.

There are some accounts of gunmen changing their clothes and leaving the mall in the midst of fleeing shoppers (AFP, September 21). While unconfirmed, they raise the possibility that parts of the operational cell may have survived to carry out further attacks. If none of the attackers still holding out in the Westgate mall are taken alive, Kenyan authorities will have lost a key source of intelligence in their investigations. Wary of booby-traps, well-concentrated fire and the danger to remaining hostages, Kenyan security forces have been forced to proceed slowly in securing the interior of the mall and ending the stand-off. Kenyan Special Forces were reported to have received military support from Israel, former colonial power Great Britain and the United States. [2]

Mogadishu Attacks Part of al-Shabaab’s Regional Strategy

Only two hours before the Westgate Mall attack began, at least two people were killed and four others injured (including two Yemeni nationals) when attackers believed to be al-Shabaab operatives threw a hand-grenade in the foreign exchange part of Mogadishu’s Bakara market, once an important revenue source for al-Shabaab before it was expelled in 2011 by a joint AMISOM-Somali Army operation (Shabelle Media Network [Mogadishu], September 21; Garowe Online, September 21). This latest attack in Mogadishu followed closely a coordinated car-bombing/suicide bombing attack on a Mogadishu restaurant that killed at least 15 people on September 7 (al-Jazeera, September 7). Even Somali president Hasan Shaykh Mohamud narrowly avoided being killed on September 3 when his motorcade was ambushed by al-Shabaab gunmen (Shabelle Media Network [Mogadishu], September 3). Such attacks are part of al-Shabaab’s decision to revert to a guerrilla/terrorist campaign in its currently weakened state, which largely precludes more conventional military operations of any size.

The damaging attacks at home and in Kenya come at a time when Somalia has finally gathered sufficient international support to move forward with efforts to achieve a national restoration. In return for funding pledges of over $2 billion, the Somali federal government has agreed to improve security, implement a new constitution and hold general elections in 2016 (al-Jazeera, September 17). Meanwhile, Godane loyalists within al-Shabaab have lately been engaged in a purge of his opponents within al-Shabaab, including American jihadi Omar Hammami al-Amriki and a lack of funds or battlefield success has made recruitment difficult.

The Crisis in Kismayo

Understanding the assault on the Westgate Mall requires an understanding of events in the southern Somali port town of Kismayo, center of a lucrative trade in charcoal that ensures the wealth of whoever controls this strategic town. Al-Shabaab took control of Kismayo from a local militia in August, 2008 and made the port city an important base through smuggling activities and control of the substantial charcoal trade to the Middle East. However, a severe drought and al-Shabaab’s decision to terminate all international aid to the region brought starvation and the exodus of much of the region’s population to massive refugee camps in northern Kenya, camps that Nairobi views as a security threat and would like to see closed by restoring sufficient security to southern Somalia to enable the return of the refugees. 

After a number of kidnappings and other disturbances along the Kenyan-Somali border, the Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) crossed into southern Somalia to eliminate the Shabaab presence there on October 16, 2011. Al-Shabaab’s occupation of Kismayo and the surrounding region was eventually terminated in September 2012 by a combined ground, air and sea operation involving Somali troops, the Kenya Defense Force and the local Ras Kamboni militia (once an al-Shabaab ally). Unfortunately, Operation Linda Nchi did not restore stability, as the Ras Kamboni militia soon became embroiled in deadly clashes with local rivals (especially those of former warlord federal Defense Minister Colonel Barre Adnan Shire Hiraale) for control of the city. KDF forces in Somalia were later absorbed into the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on February 22, 2013. AMISOM has waged an often brutal war against al-Shabaab using mostly Ugandan and Burundian troops since 2007.

The eventual victor in the struggle for control of Kismayo was Ras Kamboni militia leader Ahmed Muhammad Islam Madobe, who appears to have agreed to rule Kismayo and its hinterland as a “semi-autonomous” unofficial buffer state separating Kenya from the rest of Somalia. Nevertheless, KDF commander General Karangi has repeatedly denied any involvement on the part of Kenyan forces in the region in the election of Ahmed Madobe as the new leader of Jubaland by 500 local leader s on May 15, while Brigadier Ngere maintains that Kenya has “a very long border with Somalia, which we have to protect. But we are not creating any buffer state” (BBC, September 22).

An August 28 agreement backed by the UN, Kenya, Ethiopia and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD – a regional grouping) was intended to resolve the differences between the autonomy-seeking Jubaland administration and the federal government in Mogadishu. In reality, the agreement failed to resolve many of the contradictions in the Kismayo/Mogadishu relationship, but did grant Jubaland a semi-autonomous status analogous to that enjoyed by Puntland, a territory in northern Somalia (Puntland severed ties with Mogadishu in August over a political dispute). The newly recognized Jubaland has an area of roughly 33,000 square miles and a population of roughly one million people. The agreement calls for the transfer of Madobe’s Ras Kamboni Brigade to the federal Somali army, but there is a possibility Brigade members might transfer to the local police, which will remain under Madobe’s control in Jubabland (Garowe Online, September 1). In effect, the agreement gives Nairobi the buffer zone it is believed to have been seeking in southern Somalia, together with a pliant local militia beholden to the Kenyan military for its rule of the region. A long-term Kenyan presence in the region essentially means that al-Shabaab will not have the opportunity it desires to force its way back into Kismayo’s charcoal export trade (a business involving a number of prominent Kenyan businessmen). [3] With revenue sources steadily drying up across Somalia, Godane has decided the time is right for drastic measures to drive out the Kenyan presence.

Ethiopian Foreign Ministry officials, who played a large role in crafting the agreement, said it was based on three main principles; respecting the legitimate constitution of Somalia, respecting the unity and sovereignty of Somalia and furthering the fight against al-Shabaab (Garowe Online, September 7).

Somalia’s federal government asked the African Union in June to replace Kenyan troops in southern Somalia with a “multinational force” without local ambitions in the region. (Nairobi Standard, July 6). The request, which was intended to remain private, contained strong criticism of the KDF commander in Somalia, Brigadier General Anthony Ngere, who was accused of “incompetence” and “poor judgment,” particularly in regards to his arrest of Colonel Abbas Ibrahim Gurey, a Somali National Army commander who was sent to Kismayo to organize locally-based federal military forces (Kismaayo/Standard Media, July 1). [4]

Madobe’s rule in the hotly-disputed region promises to be eventful – shortly after landing in Kismayo on September 12 following an official visit to Mogadishu, a convoy of vehicles carrying the new Jubaland leader was hit by an al-Shabaab suicide bomber who drove his vehicle straight into the convoy.  Ten of Madobe’s guards were killed, though Madobe, who was traveling in a bullet-proof car, was unhurt by the blast (Somaliland Sun, September 12).

Conclusion

Kenya’s official response to the Westgate attack so far has been to pledge operations to find and destroy those responsible for the Westgate attack. What will matter in the coming days is whether an aggressive response will have the support of other Kenyan politicians and the Kenyan public, some of whom might feel the price of military intervention in Somalia is too high, both in security terms and in the resultant reluctance of international investors to view Kenya as a desirable place to do business. Kenya is also planning to build a new rail and pipeline corridor carrying oil from South Sudanese and Ugandan sources to the port of Lamu, less than 95 miles from the Somali border, a development that will require new security initiatives in this poorly secured region. 

Al-Shabaab’s reclusive Amir, Abdi Godane, has now made himself and the rest of the Shabaab leadership the targets of an international man-hunt that may well result in the ultimate death of the Amir and other movement leaders. Military pressure on the movement could foster further internal disputes over Godane’s controversial choice to take the movement in the direction of a globally-focused jihad closer to al-Qaeda Central’s concerns than those of more locally-focused Somali jihadists.

The federal government in Mogadishu that once welcomed Kenyan intervention in southern Somalia now finds itself in the unlikely position of sharing al-Shabaab’s desire to end the Kenyan presence and influence in the region, though the two parties differ greatly on what they see replacing the Kenyans and the new Jubaland administration. Encouraging the development of new, autonomy-seeking administrations in a nation struggling to recover some sense of national unity that would enable it to tackle its serious economic and security challenges would seem to be a step backward in the international effort to restore stability to Somalia. Al-Shabaab’s attack on the Westgate Mall is a searing reminder that the creation of a buffer-state alone will not protect Kenya from the Islamist extremists who are determined to risk all in their struggle to expel foreign forces from Somalia on their way to creating a unified Islamic state. However, unless Kenya has enough confidence in the Somali national government’s ability to provide security in the border regions, it is likely to maintain political influence and a military presence in newly-created Jubaland regardless of the cost.

Notes

1. See http://ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=47003. Al-Shabaab’s Twitter account is currently https://twitter.com/HSM_Press.

2. For Israeli-Kenyan security cooperation, see Andrew McGregor, “Israel to Assist Kenya in Battle against al-Shabaab,” Terrorism Monitor, November 24, 2011.

3. See Muhyadin Ahmed Roble: “Al-Shabaab Razes Forests to Finance Jihad,” Terrorism Monitor, November 18, 2010.

4. See the whole document here: http://www.raxanreeb.com/2013/07/somalia-prime-minister-office-ridiculously-accused-brigadier-general-anthony-ngere-sector-two-amisom-commander-abuse-of-power/