{"id":4072,"date":"2017-11-27T14:37:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T19:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=4072"},"modified":"2017-11-29T15:06:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-29T20:06:48","slug":"europes-true-southern-frontier-the-general-the-jihadis-and-the-high-stakes-contest-for-libyas-fezzan-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=4072","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s True Southern Frontier: The General, the Jihadis, and the High-Stakes Contest for Libya\u2019s Fezzan Region"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>November 27, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andrew McGregor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abstract<\/strong>:\u00a0Libya\u2019s relentless post-revolution conflict appears to be heading for a military rather than a civil conclusion. The finale to this struggle may come with an offensive against the United Nations-recognized government in Tripoli by forces led by Libya\u2019s ambitious strongman, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. However, the conflict will continue if Haftar is unable to consolidate control of the southern Fezzan region, the source of much of the oil and water Libya\u2019s coastal majority needs to survive. Contesting control of this vital region is an aggressive assortment of well-armed jihadis, tribal militias, African mercenaries, and neo-Qaddafists. Most importantly, controlling Fezzan means securing 2,500 miles of Libya\u2019s porous southern desert borders, a haven for militants, smugglers, and traffickers. The outcome of this struggle is of enormous importance to the nations of the European Union, who have come to realize Europe\u2019s southern borders lie not at the Mediterranean coast, but in Libya\u2019s southern frontier.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Libya <\/strong>(Rowan Technology)<\/em><\/p>\n

As the territory controlled by Libya\u2019s internationally recognized government in Tripoli and its backers shrinks into a coastal enclave, the struggle for Libya appears to be entering into a decisive phase. Libyan strongman Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar claims his forces are now in control of 1,730,000 square kilometers out of Libya\u2019s total of 1,760,000 square kilometers.1<\/sup> However, to control Tripoli and achieve legitimacy, Haftar must first control its southern approaches through the Fezzan region. Europe and the United Nations recognize the Tripoli-based Presidential Council\/Government of National Accord (PC\/GNA) as the official government of Libya, but recognition has done nothing to limit migrant flows to Europe. Whoever can control these flows will be the beneficiary of European gratitude and diplomatic approval.<\/p>\n

Securing Tripoli means preventing armed elements supporting the PC\/GNA from fleeing into the southern desert. Haftar must control water pipelines (the \u201cMan-Made River Project\u201d) and oil pipelines from the south, secure the borders, and prevent Islamic State fighters, pro-Qaddafists, Islamist militias, and foreign mercenaries from turning Fezzan into a generator for continued instability in Libya.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Fezzan is a massive area of over 212,000 square miles with a mostly tribal population of less than 500,000 living in isolated oases or wadi-<\/em>s (dry riverbeds, often with subsurface water). Hidden by sand seas and rocky desert are the assets that make Fezzan so strategically desirable: vital oil fields, access to massive subterranean freshwater aquifers, and a number of important Qaddafi-era military airbases. A principal concern is the ability of radical Islamists to exploit Fezzan\u2019s lack of security to further aims such as territorial control of areas of the Sahara\/Sahel region or the facilitation of potential terrorist strikes on continental Europe. Many European states are closely watching the outcome of this competition due to the political impact of the large number of sub-Saharan African migrants passing through Fezzan\u2019s unsecured borders on their way to eventual refugee claims in Europe.<\/p>\n

Competing Governments, Competing Armies\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The security situation in Fezzan and most other parts of Libya became impossibly complicated by the absence of any unifying ideology other than anti-Qaddafism during the 2011 Libyan revolution. Every attempt to create a government of national unity since has been an abject failure.<\/p>\n

At the core of this political chaos is the United Nations-brokered Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) of December 17, 2015, which called for a tripartite government consisting of a nine-member Presidency Council (PC) to oversee the functions of head-of-state, a Government of National Accord (GNA) as the executive authority, and a House of Representatives (HoR) as the legislative authority with a High Council of State as a consultative body. In practice, most of these bodies are in conflict with each other or enduring high levels of internal dissension, leaving the nation haphazardly governed by scores of well-armed ethnic, tribal, and religious militias, often grouped into unstable coalitions. Contributing to the disorder is Khalifa Ghwell\u2019s Government of National Salvation (GNS), which claims to be the legitimate successor of Libya\u2019s General National Congress government (2014-2016) and makes periodic attempts to seize power in Tripoli, most recently in July 2017.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

The most powerful of the military coalitions is the ambitiously named Libyan National Army (LNA), a coalition of militias nominally under the Tobruk-based HoR and commanded by Khalifa Haftar, a Cyrena\u00efcan strongman who lived in Virginia after turning against Qaddafi but is now supported largely by Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is this author\u2019s observation that Haftar has a habit of speaking for the HoR rather than taking direction from it.<\/p>\n

The Tripoli-based PC, which has military authority under the LPA, is still trying to organize a national army. In the meantime, it is backed by various militias based in Misrata and Tripoli. Together with the GNA, it forms the internationally recognized government of Libya but still requires a majority vote from the Tobruk-based HoR to be fully legitimate under the terms of the LPA. There are even divisions within the seven-member PC, with three members now opposing PC chairman Fayez Serraj and supporting the HoR and Haftar.3<\/sup><\/p>\n

Fezzan\u2019s Tribal Context\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fezzan\u2019s human dimension consists of a patchwork of often-overlapping tribal and ethnic entities prone to feuds and shifting alliances. These might broadly be said to belong to one of four groups:<\/p>\n