Discussed for two years by the French officers, British and Italian, their staffs and US disciples of neoconservative ideology of Bush years, the prospect of a second military intervention in Libya is again on the order of the day.
The stated objective is the eradication of IS in Libya, the implementation capacity has limits, however. Relegating to oblivion the crucial question of rebuilding a legitimate and inclusive State, such operation would be likely to pose more problems than it is supposed to solve.
IS Parade in Sirte.
The stated objective would not be this time "protection of civilians" but IS eradication in Libya as part of the "war against terrorism" after the attacks started again Paris from 13 November 2015.
The ideal scenario for intervention on which "are working" British headquarters, French, Italian and American would be upon request for assistance issued by GNA, provided in Agreement signed on December 17 in Skhirat under pressure from Western powers and UN. If GNA is approved in Libya - until now compromised by hostile forces - could not be done quickly, Plan B would be to act without the support of a legitimate local government.
But beyond official discourse, what do we know the specifics, strengths and weaknesses of the organization of IS in Libya?
If it turns out that because of its presence in Libya a cornerstone of its communication strategy and it does not hide its goal to block them rebuild a state, its capacity for implementation and expansion in this country nevertheless deserves to be analyzed in light of Libyan specificities, which differ markedly from those of Iraq and Syria.
According to UN estimates, based themselves on those "certain Member States", IS in Libya would be about 3500 men. The authorities in Tripoli estimate about 2000 men, mainly located in Sirte and Derna/Benghazi neighborhoods.
Geography local rallies
It is only four months after taking Mosul in June 2014 by IS, a local Libyan jihadist group, the Islamic Youth Advisory Council (Shura majliss chabab al-Islam) Derna, officially allegiance to IS.
A month and a half later acknowledges this fact and allegiance of Cyrenaica one of its provinces (wilayat barka) alongside its other provinces of Iraq and Syria. In February 2015, it was the turn of Sirte to fall into IS hands, which proclaims capital of Tripolitania province (wilayat Tarabulus).
In Libya, IS implementation in a city or region responds primarily to specific local considerations which reflect both the diversity and local issues based on cities and regions. From insurgency and civil war of 2011 beginnings, situation in Libya has indeed characterized by extreme geographical fragmentation, with a predominance of local issues on national logic and ideological positions.
Rallies in favor of one side or another therefore meet one or more logic specific to each local situation: alliance with the strongest party able to provide protection to a minority group or arbitration between rival groups the absence of sufficiently powerful local authority or in a context with degraded social fabric of solidarity, with a members of a family or clan, charisma of a militia leader or preacher and last but not least, predatory logic.
First historical IS enclave in Libya, still presented a year ago as an impregnable stronghold, Derna was conquered by local militias without Libyan National Army embryo support, consisting mainly of traditionally rival tribes opponents of Derna.
In Benghazi, IS fighters have two fronts against General Haftar seven units and local militias under his control.
If circumstancial alliances exist with revolutionary Islamist militias attached to Benghazi Advisory Council revolutionary front against Haftar troops, tensions are still regularly updated between the two factions.
Sirte, regularly described in the Western media of "Libyan Rakka" (referring to Syrian IS capital) is the only city where IS militias took hold.
Both history and sociology of the city provide some explanations.
Former stronghold of Muammar Gaddafi tribe, Sirte has actually hosted the last bastions of resistance of his regime in 2011. Often presented by its inhabitants as the "Libya Dresden", with reference to the destruction caused by 2011 bombing, Sirte was excluded so far in new Libya.
Its tribes were ostracized and its social fabric challenged by population displacement and destruction.
No local militia having any revolutionary legitimacy has also emerged after the fall of the regime and the security order has been carried out by militia from Misrata, perceived as occupation forces and acting as such with local people.
Al-Farouq katiba deployed in Sirte, is also a militia from Misrata, which constitutes the backbone of the military presence of the latter.
It is composed of young people rallied to jihadism initially affiliated to Ansar Al-Sharia group before end of 2014 to pledge allegiance to IS.
Reigning through terror, intimidation and retribution on local population weakened and requesting order and security, these groups, which were assistants by foreign recruits (including proved presence of Somalis, Tunisians, Algerians, Mauritanians, Malians and Egyptians) have also taken advantage - to win - of individual local rallies and divisions among local factions.
Due to geographical location of Sirt - the heart of a desert region located at intersection of the respective zones of influence between two Parliaments of Tobruk and Tripoli, IS has also largely benefited from the conflict between the two rival entities.
All their struggle for national supremacy and their antagonism were to the detriment of common action against IS.
Misrata is itself divided between supporters of the fight against IS and supporters of the defense of the capital Tripoli.
Stir up divisions
The example of Derna, where local armed groups competing successfully repelled those of IS, however, shows that the success of it are not irreversible provided that there is a local or regional alternative.
The example of Sirte where IS manages when no local force is able to resist.
Conscious of its inability to present IS as military conqueror of a wide territorial basis as it has done in Iraq and Syria, IS in Libya now seems to have adopted a strategy to stir up divisions within its enemies in order to prevent at all costs the establishment of GNA.
This strategy results in particular in terrorist actions against symbolic targets of the two camps. IS also seeks to address the oil sites controlled by guards oil installations federalist Ibrahim Jadhran, more in order to make them unusable for national resources dry up than to seize them.
Having failed to significantly expand its hold to east and west since summer 2015, IS appears to seek to develop its action from Sirte to the Sahel by expanding its recruitment policy elements among Tuareg as reflected in its recruitment messages broadcast in their language.
Unanimous condemnation of suicide attacks
The bomb of January 8, 2016 against a police academy in Zliten, which killed at least 65 deaths and suicide attacks against oil sites of Ras Lanuf, however, could announce a shift in the situation to IS detriment.
Ras Lanuf attacks have indeed had the immediate effect to start a tactical cooperation between Misrata militias affiliated to Dawn coalition and oil installations guards led by Ibrahim Jadhran.
This cooperation resulted in particular in joint operations room establishment for medical evacuation of injured oil guards, in the attacks to Misrata hospitals and use of Misrata aircrafts to the benefit of Jadhran troops against IS.
The horror of Zliten prompted a unanimous rejection reaction throughout Libya. The images of "suicide attackers" published by IS which show young men faces apparently originated in African Sahel or in Horn of Africa, widely broadcasted on Libyan social networks, have also greatly shocked a wide public.
Photo of one of "martyrs", a 15 year old named Abd El-Mounaam Dweïla who had fled a few weeks earlier of his parents' home in Tripoli to join IS in Sirte has also aroused strong emotion in many families. The story of his radicalization, amply publicized, confirms the emergence of a new phenomenon of intergenerational rupture in Libya.
Son of a pious family which was part of a Koranic school affiliated to a Sufi brotherhood, the young man had gradually radicalized in contact with a preacher of the district who has turned away from Sufi path to jihadism.
The tragedy of Zliten few days after the suicide bombing of the jihadist will thus succeeded for the first time since the fall of the Gaddafi regime, to bring all the warring factions in Libya in a unanimous and unambiguous condemnation of the attack.
The route of the young jihadist Dweïli has also alerted many parents about the risks of radicalization of their children.
A puppet of the West?
Whether driving or not, at the request of future GNA, a new military intervention in Libya which relegate to oblivion the issue of Libyan sovereignty therefore likely to pose more problems than it is supposed to solve.
If some voices in Libya call for a new foreign intervention, the vast majority of Libyans is indeed hostile to a foreign operation ontheir soil - whether by Western countries or Arab countries.
By distancing the prospect of winning a national Libyan-Libyan alliance exclusively against IS, foreign intervention would also help to legitimize GNA that would appear so clearly as a puppet of the West.
It also would feed the resentment of many Libyans who, without being well disposed towards West, are not less sensitive to the most radical political actors arguments, east and west of Libya, to maintain the plot theories, the most common being the one that IS is a new West creature to intervene in Arab countries.
A new international military intervention in Libya will therefore not - on the contrary - clean political and societal roots from IS presence in Libya, whose prerequisite is the reconstruction of a legitimate Libyan government with all Libyan local politico-military actors included.
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