Topic: Western nutjobs destroyed Libya - another of their wrecks. Here are the results - page 6. (Read 9715 times)

It´s a policy. They systematically destroy country after country, displacing millions which go where? Right.

Peter Sutherland: Unlimited immigration into Europe from Africa is a benefit

Published on Jun 27, 2015
Broadcast on RTÉ radio, Ireland June 2015, Peter Sutherland chairman of Goldman Sachs International comments on looking at potential figures of 240,000 migrants arriving in Europe each year and whether anyone has worked out what the capacity of Europe is to deal with these numbers of migrants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=46&v=rVmg37snifI

See... there are mainly two groups of criminals who are profiting from the Mediterranean migrant crisis. The first group is composed of local Libyan criminal gangs, some of them affiliated with the Islamic State. The second groups is the Italian mafia clans, such as the 'Ndrangheta, Camorra, Sacra Corona Unita, and the Cosa Nostra. If we eradicate these two groups, the migrant inflows from the Mediterranean will automatically cease.

Libya chaos likely to affect Tunisian security, experts say

By Asma Ajroudi | Al Arabiya News

Thursday, 26 February 2015

Tunisia will be most affected if the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continues to expand in Libya, Tunisian terrorism experts say.

“Libya is a ticking bomb,” former Brigadier-General Mohammed Sellami told Al Arabiya News.

“Not dealing with terrorism in Libya is likely to shake security in Tunisia, and even the Maghreb region in the long run.”

Libya descended into war after the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.

The North African country now has two rival governments and parliaments, each backed by armed militias. The absence of law and authority in the oil-rich country has turned it into a beacon for extremists. ... more

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/analysis/2015/02/26/Libya-chaos-likely-to-affect-Tunisian-security-experts-say-.html

Libya warns EU on migrant operation – ‘sign of frustration by West-installed forces’

Published time: June 24, 2015 11:07

Libya hasn’t got the aid promised by the West in 2011, today it’s against the potential EU naval operation in the Mediterranean saying Western countries can’t create a greater crisis, says Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire website.

EU naval forces are preparing for a possible combat mission, to stem the flow of human trafficking from Libya. But Libyan Air Force Commander Saqr Al-Jaroushi has warned against any such action without permission. ...more

http://rt.com/op-edge/269368-libya-eu-naval-operation-migrants/

Blumenthal’s emails showed Hillary how to take credit for ‘success’ in Libya

June 23, 2015 | Michael Schaus

Clinton family insider Sidney Blumenthal acted like a political adviser giving then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton direction on how to “claim credit” for the “success” in Libya, Rep. Trey Gowdy told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren on Monday. ....

Gowdy, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, told Van Susteren that newly acquired emails showed the nature of Blumenthal’s political relationship with Clinton while she was America’s top diplomat.

Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/06/23/blumenthals-emails-showed-hillary-how-to-take-credit-for-success-in-libya-217046#ixzz3dyudjvxr

Well, this farce of a one-party state is so far gone that everybody whose IQ tops that of an average chimpanzee (no disrespect against apes is intended by this comparison) has long ago given up on voting. So, the few dumbos that are left to nominally vote before the voting machines produce the results can be served anything, even Bush3 vs. Clinton2. The corporate owners of this system are openly mocking America and the world.

Don't edit my posts, lowlife. This is what I had posted.



Lol... it will be interesting to see what will happen, if Hillary is actually voted in to the White House in 2016. May be she will favor the ISIS taking over all of Libya, so that no one will really come to know about her role in the 2012 Benghazi attack, which targeted the American embassy. She is really good in hiding her past crimes. For example, take the murder of Vince Foster.

GADDAFI WAS A GREAT MAN? OH GOD. ENOUGH INTERNET FOR TODAY. Would you say the same if he did the same activities with your family? Fucking stupid.

Yes, obviously the corporate mass media isn´t very interested in Lybia now, mainly because corporations want to manhandle one of the main nutjobs that created the mess into the White House. And that is going to be very difficult anyway without even more skeletons in tow.

No one is taking the ISIS contingent in Libya seriously, and this could be a big mistake. They already number in tens of thousands, and are slowly conquering more and more villages, as the government forces are fighting against the Gen. Khalifa Hifter-led coalition. ISIS is slowly establishing itself, and when the time comes, they will launch an assault against Tripoli.

Obama’s Libya Fiasco

June 19, 2015

Exclusive: With Libya’s bloody “regime change” in 2011, the Obama administration and its European allies opened the door to anarchy and now the emergence of another Islamic State terror affiliate, but chaos and indecision continue to dominate the West’s reaction to the crisis, says Andres Cala.


By Andres Cala

U.S. Marines are expanding the U.S. military presence in Spain with eyes set on Libya’s escalating three-way civil war, which threatens to become a Syrian-like quagmire on Europe’s doorstep, an unintended consequence of the 2011 U.S.-European-led “regime change” that overthrew and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

While there’s little chance – for now – that the Marines will get entangled in yet another military adventure, America’s European allies are fumbling the Libyan crisis, allowing the Islamic State (Daesh, ISIS, ISIL or whatever you call it) to exploit a power vacuum, though still far from taking over.

President Barack Obama at the White House with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Samantha Power (right), his U.N. ambassador. (Photo credit: Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama at the White House with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Samantha Power (right), his U.N. ambassador. (Photo credit: Pete Souza)
The agreement, signed this week and awaiting only ratification from Spain’s Parliament, will make the Morón de la Frontera air base in southern Spain into a permanent base of operations against jihadists in North Africa, covering not just Libya but also Mali, Tunisia and Algeria. Troops stationed there will swell from the 850 currently there under temporary agreements to 2,200, plus 500 civilians. The agreement also involves basing 26 aircraft.

Morón will house a forward-operating base with a potent armory and fast-reaction special-op teams to carry out elite counter-terrorism operations, like the one in 2013 when American forces captured an accused Libyan terrorist for his role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Or the 2014 capture of the alleged mastermind of the 2012 attack in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. diplomatic personnel.

And perhaps as a prelude to what is to come, there was the stealth air assault earlier this week in Libya (the first American one since the 2011 NATO campaign) that targeted Mokhtar Belmoktar, the elusive Algerian Al Qaeda leader who led the attack on an Algerian gas plant in 2013 that left 38 hostages dead, including three Americans. (His death is not confirmed and Al Qaeda’s branch in northern Africa denied that Belmoktar is dead.)

To be sure, the U.S. deal with Spain is not a strategic shift, but rather a military acknowledgement that Europe may not be able to deal with the Libyan chaos. The Islamic State franchise already controls coastal territory and is now targeting Misrata, the third largest city.

The threat is real — and individual countries like Italy have called for a more active military role. The problem is that NATO is divided. And, while the Islamic State menace is still nascent, Libya’s strategic position – just a few hundred miles south of Sicily – represents a danger to Europe, underscored by recent attempts of migrants to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya.

The Libyan conflict is looking like the early stages of the Iraqi conflict after longtime dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted and killed, unleashing pent-up hostilities among competing tribes, ethnic groups and political factions. There are similarities, too, with the Syrian civil war in which U.S. Arab allies and Turkey have supported the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad.

In Libya, there are two governments operating, each with their own foreign support. In the east, based in Tobruk on a cruise ship, is the “Dignity” government, which most European countries and the Saudi-Egyptian alliance endorse. The Tobruk government is backed by an authoritarian and volatile general, Khalifa Haftar.

In the west, based in the capital Tripoli, is a moderate Islamist coalition under the “Libya Dawn” banner, backed by Qatar and Turkey. Though Muslim Brotherhood-based, the coalition is mostly allied warring clans that mistrust their eastern rivals. The U.K. and the U.S. officially remain on the sidelines, supporting United Nations negotiations aimed at unifying the Tripoli and Tobruk factions.

The civil war – and military stalemate – has so far thwarted all attempts to build a reconciliation government, a prerequisite to combat gains by ISIS and other radical militants, including Al Qaeda. The UN-set deadline expired this week with no signs of a breakthrough, basically because most European countries continue to support the eastern bloc despite its fragile political position.

The latest UN-pitched deal favors the Tripoli faction, but it has been rejected by the Tobruk faction. In essence, each warring side demands to have a commanding role in any future national unity government, while rejecting any prominent role for the other.

Sound familiar? Rival political factions unable to resolve their differences while extremists – Al Qaeda and the Islamic State – gain strength and consolidate territory. This was the pattern in Iraq and Syria – and now Libya, where the ISIS franchise is bulking up in Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, smack in the center of the two other sides.

ISIS is still far from posing a serious threat, but some of the militants are battle-hardened from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. ISIS is also slowly winning over support from local militants, although still lacking the necessary economic muscle, a situation that could soon change.

ISIS already controls vital water and power supply lines and is targeting oil facilities to the east. Strategically, however, ISIS is looking west on Misrata, the last bastion before ISIS can target Tripoli. The ISIS attacks are already straining the front lines of the “Libya Dawn” coalition.

The UN Security Council is alarmed and is pressing the two political factions – in Tripoli and Tobruk – urging both sides in Libya to cooperate and compromise, but that doesn’t change the situation on the ground. Europe is divided as is the Arab world and Turkey, creating more space for ISIS to put down roots and grow.

By compounding Europe’s already serious immigration crisis, Libyan instability is urgent for Europe. There are reportedly between 500,000 and 1 million migrants waiting to cross from the anarchic country, especially to Italy. Gaddafi, in fact, warned Europe not to depose him because the disorder could create fertile ground for both Islamic extremism and an immigration crisis.

Besides flooding Europe with immigrants, ISIS could transform Libya into a training hub, bordering Egypt and Tunisia, which is even closer to Italy. Then what? Which is why President Barack Obama is increasingly alarmed at the situation.

As Europe and NATO dither, the U.S. is bolstering its military presence through bilateral partnerships, not just in Spain but also Italy. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin Dempsey said it bluntly last week speaking at a Naples Navy base:

“The truth is, in our line of work, the very last thing we want to do is play a home game. We really want to play an away game and we need teammates to do it. We need to be forward. And we need to be sure that as conflict approaches – and conflict will approach – we have a shot at shaping it before we’re in it.”

Obama’s goal is not to get deeply involved in the Libyan civil war, again. His acquiescence in 2011 to demands from then-National Security Council aide Samantha Power and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to join in the overthrow of Gaddafi was a major factor in creating the Libyan chaos in the first place.

However, after Obama leaves office, the next president – whether Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush or some other contender – might opt to side with Saudi Arabia and Egypt against the “Libya Dawn” bloc in Tripoli, radicalizing Libya’s more moderate Islamists and driving many into the arms to ISIS.

The risk of a full collapse of Libya is real with Europe seemingly unable to get its act together and Obama failing to act with the necessary urgency. As with so many other foreign policy issues, Obama seems indecisive, unwilling to control his administration’s hardliners and hoping for a consensus that never comes. In the meantime, the U.S. military is making preparations for a military scenario.

And, while it may be better for the U.S. to play away games than home games, Europe does not have that luxury because Libya is getting very close to home for Europe.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/19/obamas-libya-fiasco/

Chaos in Libya paves way for Islamic State expansion

BY REBECCA MURRAY
McClatchy Foreign Staff

June 17, 2015

MISRATA, LIBYA — Benefiting from Libya’s political chaos, Islamic State militants are consolidating their base in the city of Sirte and grabbing new territory, pushing back fighters from Misrata.

Libya’s two dueling governments, one based in Tripoli and the other based in Beida and Tobruk in the country’s east, are running dangerously low of cash as they back armed groups against each other, allowing the Islamic State to exploit the rift to grab territory.

The Tripoli-based government, known as Libya Dawn, and its rival, the Dignity coalition based in the east, have yet to come together to target the Islamic State’s growth, even as some commanders for Misrata’s militia, long considered the country’s most adept and a mainstay of Libya Dawn, worry that their city has become an Islamic State target.

“Daash are the biggest enemy,” said one Misratan intelligence official, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. He declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of his work.

Still, many in the Tripoli-based government view defeating Gen. Khalifa Hifter, who is aligned with the Dignity coalition, as a higher priority.

The Islamic State found fertile ground for development among Sirte’s disaffected, who were on the losing end of the 2011 war that toppled hometown boy Moammar Gadhafi and found their once-favored city devastated by the fighting and the NATO aerial campaign, according to one religious sheikh who fled his house on the outskirts of Sirte after Islamic State devotees moved into the house next door three months ago.

Some unhappy Gadhafi supporters at first had gravitated to Ansar al Shariah, the Islamist militia tied to the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

Then about six months ago, foreigners began arriving in Sirte, the sheikh said.

“The foreigners came one by one so the people of Sirte didn’t feel their presence,” he said. Recently, he said he was stopped at an impromptu checkpoint. He noticed the gunmen were not Libyans but from countries like Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan and Yemen.

Like other religious and tribal leaders, he asked to remain anonymous, saying it is too dangerous to speak out against the Islamic State, which he estimated number as many as 1,000 men in Sirte. He said they control control all the mosques.

“They have never given me trouble as they respect me – I taught some of them about the Quran before,” the sheikh as he sat in his refuge of a small, whitewashed room lined with mattresses in Misrata.

The fighters, he said, appeared to have money, had stocked up on supplies like fuel, and had recruited quietly through family networks.

The Islamic State flag now flies over the sprawling Ougadogou conference center Gadhafi built in Sirte. The militants also control the university, the Ibn Sina hospital, government buildings, including the police station and the passport office, as well as the seaport.

The militants also occupy the luxury Mahari hotel, the horrific scene of a seaside massacre by Misratan fighters against alleged Gadhafi loyalists in 2011, and more recently a suspected site for gruesome execution videos produced by the Islamic State.

Views of the Islamic State as a threat continue to evolve within the Tripoli-based government, and those from Misrata within it.

In January, after a spectacular terrorist attack on Tripoli’s Corinthian hotel and the videotaped beheadings of Egyptian laborers, Misrata dispatched its Brigade 166 to contain the Islamic State threat inside Sirte while other units continued fighting Hifter, a former Gadhafi general who defected to the United States in the 1980s and returned to Libya as the NATO air campaign deepened in 2011.

Misrata authorities talked tough about the Islamic State threat in March after Islamic State fighters murdered 10 Misratan militia members at a checkpoint, declaring their intention of ending the group’s presence in Sirte.

But an offensive by Hifter on Misratan forces outside Tripoli coincided with Misrata’s buildup to fight the Islamic State. Faced with two enemies, the Misratans chose not to engage in what they feared would be drawn-out urban combat in Sirte and instead tried to contain the Islamic State. The result was a series of tit-for-tat skirmishes on Sirte’s outskirts.

Despite the rising toll of Misratan fighters killed by the Islamic State around Sirte, Libya Dawn leaders continue to insist that Hifter was the deadlier threat.

The Misratan intelligence official, who spent time tracking down and capturing Islamic State militants, voiced frustration at what he perceived as a lack of support from the government in Tripoli. He produced a thick stack of unused credit cards from Aman Bank that he claimed was found on an Islamic State suspect and were used as a recruiting tool. Each had a spending limit of 20,000 Libyan – about $14,000.

He also had a notebook filled with phone numbers of suspects he claimed were pulled off Islamic State pages on Facebook, and religious literature culled from mosques in the coastal town of Sabratha, a major center for recruitment.

Misratan fighters also blame Tripoli’s Defense Ministry for their defeat at the hands of the Islamic State at Sirte’s airport on May 29. The airport had been a Misratan military base, but Islamic State fighters overran the Misratan positions. They also seized the massive pipeline that funnels water from desert aquifers to feed Libya’s thirsty coast. Soon after, the Islamic State captured the city’s main power station, 30 miles to the west. They also now control the coastal road east of Sirte running toward the country’s lucrative oilfields.

The Tripoli government provided little support – weapons, ammunition and wages – Misratan fighters complain, and now they fear the Islamic State is attacking Misrata itself, with a series of recent explosions inside the city.

A spokesman for the Tripoli government, Jamal Zubia, called for international support against the Islamic State. Libya Dawn’s rival in the east is the internationally recognized government.

“We are up against a well-financed enemy with sophisticated support,” he said. “And the international community should support us against them.”

But Zubia ruled out direct intervention, such as the NATO bombing campaign that toppled Gadhafi. “No one will accept that,” he said.

For Jamal Trachey, the military leader of Misrata’s elite Third Force, Tripoli’s hesitancy to tackle the Islamic State is a mistake. His fighters have been attacked by the Islamic State on the isolated desert road between the coast and Jufra, in southern Libya where they are based.

“The Islamic State is a bigger threat than Hifter,” he said.

Murray is a McClatchy special correspondent.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/06/17/270105/islamic-state-expands-in-libya.html#storylink=cpy

Just wait until the Pinoccibitch becomes the President of the United States in 2016. Compared to her, Barry Banana will look like an angel. Whatever we say about him, we have to admit that Banana was less war crazy, when compared to the loonies such as Pinoccibitch, Jeb Bush, GW Bush, Joe Biden, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio.etc.

They've done it all before, and we always come to the same conclusion: where they go, grass doesn't grow anymore. Arab spring, now Ukraine, Serbia, entire Balkans actually... That is their MO, that's all because of their greed.

Western-style democracies tend to work poorly in the Middle East (yeah, I know Libya technically isn't in the Middle East). I don't know if that's something inherent to their cultures or if it's the result of the decades-long US policy of propping up dictatorships in the area during the Cold War but governments there tend to take two forms; either a secular dictatorship or a religious theocracy.

While authoritarian dictatorships might carry negative connotations in the West, a heavy-handed dictator like Gaddafi, Hussein, Assad, or Mubarak is helpful in terms of maintaining stability and suppressing sectarian tensions. Hence their removal exacerbates these sectarian conflicts and often results in these countries descending into civil war.

Bush naively wanted to force democracy in the Middle East. His plan to topple Saddam Hussein succeeded, but since then Iraq has descended into chaos. It was from this chaos that ISIS emerged. Then the Syrian uprising allowed ISIS to grow in strength and numbers and emerge as a major force in the region as well as conquering large swaths of Iraq in the process.

There are some successful democracies in the Middle East, however. Lebanon, for example, is one of the most diverse countries in the Middle East. It has a strict policy of reserving the highest political positions to specific sects in order to deter sectarian conflict by making everyone feel represented. Turkey is another example - but it too, began as a secular authoritarian dictatorship under its first President, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Yes, they seem to have intelligence, false or true, about locations where their targets might stop by or reside, at family, friends etc. and shoot that up in the hope of being right. If they´re not well tough luck but why worry there are no consequences for them, nobody is going to hold them accountable for mass murder. And so it goes on. Clearly this system is run by homicidal maniacs and psychopaths which is regrettable but what is to be done?
They´re not going to take themselves out of circulation in the interests of public safety. Maybe if they give Pres, Barry Banana and his gang of fruitcakes another peace prize he´ll be a little less blood thirsty?

^^^^ I am not surprised. On the other hand, I really doubt about the true intention of these Americans. By killing innocent people using drones, they are encouraging more and more locals to join the ISIS. I am sure that at least some innocent people might have died in the latest strikes, as the American drone strikes are notoriously inaccurate.

CIA not sure if they killed some terrier guy for the 23rd time or not.

US Strike in Libya Killed Three, But Growing Doubts Target Was Among Them
Officials Unclear Who Was Actually Slain in Strike

by Jason Ditz, June 15, 2015

A US airstrike overnight yesterday in Libya was initially reported to have killed al-Qaeda figure Mokhtar Belmokhtar, but after Libyan officials initially “confirmed” this they followed up by saying they were unsure who was actually killed in the US Strike.

The strike targeted a farm near Benghazi, where US officials believed Belmokhtar was in a meeting. Three people were killed in the strike, but no one has been conclusively identified, and there appears to be growing doubt over Belmokhtar being among them.

Belmokhtar was a figure within al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and had claimed credit for the 2013 Ameriras hostage-taking incident in Algeria, in which 39 hostages and 29 militants were slain. He had been listed by the State Department as a terrorist financier since 2003.

Belmokhtar had been falsely reported slain several times in the past, only to reemerge publicly, and officials seem less eager to claim conclusively that they have him this time, because these false reports are getting a bit embarrassing.

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/15/us-strike-in-libya-killed-three-but-growing-doubts-target-was-among-them/

http://news.antiwar.com/2015/06/15/us-strike-in-libya-killed-three-but-growing-doubts-target-was-among-them/

This might seem difficult to believe. The Americans and their NATO vassals have succeeded in converting Libya, from the richest nation in the African continent, to one of the poorest. Earlier, Libya was one of the most preferred destination for economic immigrants from the Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, Libyan refugees are flooding in to Southern European nations in their tens of thousands.

Libyan gains may offer ISIS a base for new attacks

By Hassan Morajea and Erin Cunningham June 6 at 8:57 PM
 
MISURATA, Libya — As the Islamic State scores new victories in Syria and Iraq, its affiliate in Libya is also on the offensive, consolidating control of Moammar Gaddafi’s former home town and staging a bomb attack on a major city, Misurata.

The Islamic State’s growth could further destabilize a country already suffering from a devastating civil war. And Libya could offer the extremists a new base from which to launch attacks elsewhere in North Africa.

The Libyan affiliate does not occupy large amounts of territory as the Islamic State does in Syria and Iraq. But in the past few months, the local group has seized Sirte, the coastal city that was Gaddafi’s last redoubt, as well as neighborhoods in the eastern city of Derna.

A key reason for the Libyan affiliate’s expansion is the chaos that has enveloped this oil-rich nation since the 2011 Arab Spring revolt. The country has two rival governments and is rent by fighting between militias that emerged from the anti-Gaddafi struggle.

Although the Islamic State claims allies in many countries, the Libya branch is especially close to the main organization. Its core fighters in Libya are veterans of the Syrian civil war.

Security experts estimate there are as many as 3,000 fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Libya. The country has become one of the primary locations to train with the group outside of Syria and Iraq. Volunteers from Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other countries have flocked here to fight with the extremists and other jihadist organizations. The Islamic State also has succeeded in pulling away members of other Libyan extremist groups.

In the latest signs of their growing strength, Islamic State fighters last month seized the airport and an adjacent air base in Sirte, where they have controlled most government institutions since February. The militants also took over the nearby headquarters of a mammoth network of pipes that pump fresh water to Libyan cities.

Then, on May 31, the militants dispatched a Tunisian suicide bomber to Misurata, 170 miles west of Sirte. He rammed his vehicle into a major security checkpoint, killing five.

Five days later, Islamic State fighters captured the town of Harawah, 46 miles east of Sirte.

Misurata’s militias gained a reputation as some of the country’s toughest fighters during the 2011 uprising. But the powerful militias have been deeply embroiled in a fight against forces aligned with Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the Libyan army chief who declared war on the country’s Islamists in 2014.

[Gen. Hifter, who is leading Libya rebellion, spent years in Northern Virginia]


The Misurata commanders have been cautious about taking on the Islamic State, even though the militias clashed with extremist fighters in Sirte. But the recent suicide bombing has prompted the commanders to shift their focus.

“They see the threat, and they are really focused on it now,” said Frederic Wehrey, a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Misurata’s militia leaders held meetings in Tripoli, the capital, this past week to coordinate a counterattack, according to an official from the city’s military council. Misurata sits along the coast between Tripoli and Sirte.

“The priorities have shifted,” Wehrey said. “Misurata is getting hit [by the Islamic State], and they are just down the road.”

Since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, this city of about 500,000 — Libya’s third-largest — has enjoyed relative stability. Thanks to advanced infrastructure and the city’s port, Misurata has again established itself as a Mediterranean trade hub.

Advancing in Libya
Gaddafi cracked down on domestic Islamist groups during his four-decade rule. But Islamists became powerful after the 2011 rebellion, with some joining the government and others openly running armed factions.

Still, the Islamic State did not appear in Libya until mid-2014. A group of Libyan militants who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State while fighting in Syria returned home and began to organize in the eastern city of Derna, according to experts and Libyan Islamists.

At the time, Libya’s weak government was fracturing into two entities: an Islamist-led administration in Tripoli, and a Hifter-aligned authority in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Later in 2014, the Islamic State leadership sent a delegation from Syria to Libya to formally receive pledges of allegiance to its self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Libyan group set up three caliphate “provinces” in the east, in Tripoli and in the south. Each province has an Islamic State governor, but there is no single spiritual or military leader inside Libya, experts say.

For the Islamic State, Libya is attractive because of its location along the Mediterranean Sea, making it a potential launchpad for attacks on places such as Egypt and Tunisia, analysts say. The country’s vast desert regions and general lawlessness also mean the Islamic State could operate quite freely.

In February, Islamic State fighters drove a convoy of vehicles mounted with heavy weapons into Sirte, capturing a cluster of government buildings and a local radio station.

Soon the militants began enforcing their own brand of strict Islamic law. According to local news reports, militants established checkpoints to inspect vehicles and confiscate items such as CDs and cigarettes, which they say are not Islamic.

“These extremist forces were not so strong a few months ago,” said Mohamed Lagha, a Libyan journalist who has reported from Sirte. But “they have continued to grow” and now control most of the city, he said.

The Libyan Islamic State militants caused an international outcry in February when they released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians who had been abducted in December and January. In April, the group released a similar video in which militants beheaded 15 Ethiopian Christians and shot 15 more in Libya.

The Islamic State also has claimed terrorist attacks in cities such as Tripoli and Benghazi.

Despite the extremists’ advances, there are several factors that will probably hinder their growth, Wehrey said. The country’s 6.2 million people are mostly Sunni, so there are not the kind of sectarian divisions that have allowed the Islamic State to grow in Syria and Iraq.

Lacking in revenue
The Libyan affiliate also lacks a stream of revenue, hampering its ability to offer social services. In Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State has far more income because of its control of some of the countries’ oil production, as well as its ability to impose taxes and collect ransoms from kidnappings. Libya’s petroleum resources remain under the control of the two governments.

Still, the Misuratan military official said the Islamic State militants in Sirte are capable fighters.

“We are not sure how many [fighters] there are, and they are pretty well-armed,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to the media. “Of course they are a threat.”

Wehrey said the number of militants in Sirte is probably in the low- to mid-hundreds.

The military official said the Misurata factions plan to move against the Islamic State in Sirte before the end of the month, but they might not have enough manpower to attack so soon. The Misuratan brigades, which are made up of as many as 40,000 fighters, are deployed across Libya in their fight against Hifter’s forces.

The United Nations has for months worked to hammer out a peace deal between the two Libyan governments, which have been unable to cooperate in confronting the militants.

“We need the people upstairs to get their act together and agree that these extremists must be fought,” said Ismael Shighmani, a Misurata police officer who was close to the checkpoint that was attacked recently. “They are the main threat in Libya now.”

Read more:

In Libya, will Misrata be the kingmaker?

Why the Islamic State has its eyes on Libya

Oil-rich Libya, torn by conflict, may be going broke

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/in-libyas-civil-war-the-islamic-state-shows-itself-as-the-main-threat/2015/06/06/65766592-0879-11e5-951e-8e15090d64ae_story.html