IS wants to destroy Libyan oil wealth instead of profit as it has already demonstrated the ability to do in Syria and Iraq. Here why. Self-proclaimed Islamic State, which in June 2014 was located between Iraq and Syria, it has now become a global company with approximately 50 affiliated groups or supporters that operate "franchise" under the brand of the Caliphate in 21 nations. He has held 33 official provinces in 11 of these countries.
While IS lost about a quarter of the territory it conquered in Iraq and Syria, it has since established an international presence on the ground, in cyberspace and in the popular imagination.
In Libya alone, Daesh has doubled its presence in the last 12 months and now, according to the Pentagon, has between 5000 and 6500 trained fighters. While the opposition forces should confront the jihadists are defined as "unreliable, insecure, disorganized and divided into different areas and tribes often hostile to each other."
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, a few days ago warned that "the last thing I would like the world is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars in oil profits." Despite several years of growing US concerns about the fate of Libya, concrete responses were feeble and least mitigated by energy self mirage when - with oil at $ 100 a barrel - was still convenient to extract oil from shale on US soil rather than garantirsene the import from abroad (if necessary by force).
It is evident embarrassment, not only American, to embark on yet another war in a Muslim land; This is why diplomats around the world are making every effort to consolidate and allow the settlement of the Libyan government "of national unity." But, given the limited success of this effort, they are already planning air strikes, commando attacks localized on strategic and Libyan militia training objectives. They evaluate, in short, all of the options that require the minimum possible number of Westerners on the ground to try to retract the fewest possible deaths.
Meanwhile, few have noticed that the Caliphate in Libya has adopted an "energy policy" as opposed to that already adopted in Syria and Iraq, where it has put into production at the wells and organized a clandestine distribution circuit with the formally enemy Turkey. In Libya, however, the terrorists attacking the oil infrastructure to weaken the two rival governments. For now, it is content to destroy, because it has no forces and skills necessary to capture and control wells and to refine and distribute oil.
In fact, 2015 was a terrible year for Libyan oil industry. Civil war and the consolidation of the Caliphate threat (which, here as elsewhere, has infiltrated taking advantage of institutions weakness) prevented the oil industry to maintain rapid recovery that had been able to show in the second half of 2014. The 2015 was the worst year for energy production from the Libyan civil war of 2011: 400 thousand barrels per day (25% of actual capacity) and they managed to export only 250 thousand. The fall in oil prices has done the rest: it is estimated that, in 2015, the Central Bank of Libya has grossed less than $ 5 billion.
A possible recovery in 2016 cannot be excluded a priori, but hopes are not high. Any revival in Libyan production - and therefore the cash available to the coalition government - depends on two factors absolutely obvious. First of all, by the possibility of this to settle with UN support, to stop the civil war and, therefore, also be certified as the only institution authorized to export Libyan oil. The second factor is the ability to counter the advance of the caliphate, starting from 200 km of coastline under his rule in the single region of Sirte, it is to attack distance of both fields in the desert of coastal oil infrastructure.
The Isis has not undermined the Libyan energy resources until February 2015, more than eight months after its first territorial consolidation in Libya in the region of Derna. Exactly one year ago it began a series of systematic attacks on the most remote oil fields of the Sirte basin. Terrorists have chased away the guards, terrorized or killed workers, and targeted the most critical equipment blasting the control rooms and the generators and causing the complete closure of at least 11 of these infrastructures.
In the summer of 2015, the caliphate has focused his efforts on transforming it into a stronghold of Sirte to be used in case of a retreat from other areas. The operation worked so well to take Sirte to be identified as the new command center of all the self-styled Islamic state. Only in October, they recommenced the attacks on Libyan oil wealth. With a car bomb was hit the largest Libyan oil terminal in Es Sider, although with content damage. Attacks on infrastructure have continued through the fall until the first week of 2016, terrorists carried out three attacks on the terminals of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf (which have a combined theoretical capacity of 550 thousand barrels a day even if they were closed in late 2014 because of the civil war). At no time of these actions, the jihadists have launched enough men on the ground to effectively capture infrastructure. Instead, they are limited to bomb terminals and deposits from afar. They even launched suicide car bomb followed by raiding parties well trained only in order to destroy key points and then withdraw the commandos immediately after. This time the attacks were effective: 18 guards killed, 12 injured, and most of the others have fled, five deposits in Es Sider and two at Ras Lanuf were burned sending smoke 850 thousand barrels of oil. Now only three of the nineteen deposits of Es Sider can be considered operational.
A careful observer can tell a lot from the analysis of these tactics: the Isis wants to destroy the Libyan oil wealth instead of profit as it has already demonstrated the ability to do in Syria and Iraq. The test consists in the fact that the Caliphate launched only small groups well trained on infrastructure, as Mabruk, Dhahra, Bhai, Al-Ghani and Sarir, but most of these (with the exception of the two main infrastructure of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf) were poorly protected by inexperienced and not very motivated guards. No attack has instead had the clear aim of winning, defend and exploit to their advantage one of these infrastructures. Sensible choice given the limited number of trained fighters that Isis had here in 2015 and that the Pentagon was estimated then in only two or three thousand terrorists, too few given the extent of the area and aims of conquest towards the East of the caliphate.
Libyan oil is mostly found in Eni offshore platforms (for the moment well defended thanks Sea Safe operation of the Italian Navy) and in the desert away from the sea and from urban centers located on the coast where Isis is stronger. The only way to transfer the oil in commercial volumes is with pipelines to the refineries on the coast, where it comes refined and used both for internal use and for export. In Libya there are only five refineries, all on the coast except Sarir in the southeast. Each of these are in the territory controlled by a different tribe, and, for the moment, hostile to the Caliphate and, with the exception of Sarir, is situated away from oilfields that feed making it impossible for even small terrorist power, control of an entire field-pipeline-refinery system.
In fact, crude oil has little commercial appeal if it is not brought to the refinery. It has already been described here farmyard refineries which were made in Syria. But the intelligence still seems to have discovered signs of this activity in Libya despite the apparent shortage of fuel in large parts of the territory. While Libya has a long history of smuggling of oil derivatives in the last year we have not been discovered incidents of smuggling of hydrocarbons to any degree of refining. Also, while in Syria the oil operations, are all in densely populated areas and close to each other, in Libya the distances between the key elements of the entire network are too high.
All this leads to a twofold conclusion. There is still time to consolidate a recognized form of government to end the civil war and may require UN intervention and support to hunt the terrorists before the Caliphate can profit from Libyan oil infrastructure.
But, at the same time, you can not underestimate the damage that can still cause the Isis now that it is again on the offensive nor can we ignore the fact that the ambitions of the caliphate were until now mainly limited by the scarcity of available jihadists. In recent months, however, have more than doubled the actual on Libyan territory and you can not overlook the attractiveness already demonstrated by the "franchise" of the Caliphate is to young Muslims around the world and towards each of the diverse tribes scattered in the infinite territory Libyan.
Dum Romae consulitur - While Rome Talks, as Lyvius wrote talking about the military situation in North Africa in 219 BC - It seems that the port infrastructure of Zueitina, south of Benghazi, was hit by terrorists who, for the first time, attacked by sea ...
While IS lost about a quarter of the territory it conquered in Iraq and Syria, it has since established an international presence on the ground, in cyberspace and in the popular imagination.
In Libya alone, Daesh has doubled its presence in the last 12 months and now, according to the Pentagon, has between 5000 and 6500 trained fighters. While the opposition forces should confront the jihadists are defined as "unreliable, insecure, disorganized and divided into different areas and tribes often hostile to each other."
US Secretary of State, John Kerry, a few days ago warned that "the last thing I would like the world is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars in oil profits." Despite several years of growing US concerns about the fate of Libya, concrete responses were feeble and least mitigated by energy self mirage when - with oil at $ 100 a barrel - was still convenient to extract oil from shale on US soil rather than garantirsene the import from abroad (if necessary by force).
It is evident embarrassment, not only American, to embark on yet another war in a Muslim land; This is why diplomats around the world are making every effort to consolidate and allow the settlement of the Libyan government "of national unity." But, given the limited success of this effort, they are already planning air strikes, commando attacks localized on strategic and Libyan militia training objectives. They evaluate, in short, all of the options that require the minimum possible number of Westerners on the ground to try to retract the fewest possible deaths.
Meanwhile, few have noticed that the Caliphate in Libya has adopted an "energy policy" as opposed to that already adopted in Syria and Iraq, where it has put into production at the wells and organized a clandestine distribution circuit with the formally enemy Turkey. In Libya, however, the terrorists attacking the oil infrastructure to weaken the two rival governments. For now, it is content to destroy, because it has no forces and skills necessary to capture and control wells and to refine and distribute oil.
In fact, 2015 was a terrible year for Libyan oil industry. Civil war and the consolidation of the Caliphate threat (which, here as elsewhere, has infiltrated taking advantage of institutions weakness) prevented the oil industry to maintain rapid recovery that had been able to show in the second half of 2014. The 2015 was the worst year for energy production from the Libyan civil war of 2011: 400 thousand barrels per day (25% of actual capacity) and they managed to export only 250 thousand. The fall in oil prices has done the rest: it is estimated that, in 2015, the Central Bank of Libya has grossed less than $ 5 billion.
A possible recovery in 2016 cannot be excluded a priori, but hopes are not high. Any revival in Libyan production - and therefore the cash available to the coalition government - depends on two factors absolutely obvious. First of all, by the possibility of this to settle with UN support, to stop the civil war and, therefore, also be certified as the only institution authorized to export Libyan oil. The second factor is the ability to counter the advance of the caliphate, starting from 200 km of coastline under his rule in the single region of Sirte, it is to attack distance of both fields in the desert of coastal oil infrastructure.
The Isis has not undermined the Libyan energy resources until February 2015, more than eight months after its first territorial consolidation in Libya in the region of Derna. Exactly one year ago it began a series of systematic attacks on the most remote oil fields of the Sirte basin. Terrorists have chased away the guards, terrorized or killed workers, and targeted the most critical equipment blasting the control rooms and the generators and causing the complete closure of at least 11 of these infrastructures.
In the summer of 2015, the caliphate has focused his efforts on transforming it into a stronghold of Sirte to be used in case of a retreat from other areas. The operation worked so well to take Sirte to be identified as the new command center of all the self-styled Islamic state. Only in October, they recommenced the attacks on Libyan oil wealth. With a car bomb was hit the largest Libyan oil terminal in Es Sider, although with content damage. Attacks on infrastructure have continued through the fall until the first week of 2016, terrorists carried out three attacks on the terminals of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf (which have a combined theoretical capacity of 550 thousand barrels a day even if they were closed in late 2014 because of the civil war). At no time of these actions, the jihadists have launched enough men on the ground to effectively capture infrastructure. Instead, they are limited to bomb terminals and deposits from afar. They even launched suicide car bomb followed by raiding parties well trained only in order to destroy key points and then withdraw the commandos immediately after. This time the attacks were effective: 18 guards killed, 12 injured, and most of the others have fled, five deposits in Es Sider and two at Ras Lanuf were burned sending smoke 850 thousand barrels of oil. Now only three of the nineteen deposits of Es Sider can be considered operational.
A careful observer can tell a lot from the analysis of these tactics: the Isis wants to destroy the Libyan oil wealth instead of profit as it has already demonstrated the ability to do in Syria and Iraq. The test consists in the fact that the Caliphate launched only small groups well trained on infrastructure, as Mabruk, Dhahra, Bhai, Al-Ghani and Sarir, but most of these (with the exception of the two main infrastructure of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf) were poorly protected by inexperienced and not very motivated guards. No attack has instead had the clear aim of winning, defend and exploit to their advantage one of these infrastructures. Sensible choice given the limited number of trained fighters that Isis had here in 2015 and that the Pentagon was estimated then in only two or three thousand terrorists, too few given the extent of the area and aims of conquest towards the East of the caliphate.
Libyan oil is mostly found in Eni offshore platforms (for the moment well defended thanks Sea Safe operation of the Italian Navy) and in the desert away from the sea and from urban centers located on the coast where Isis is stronger. The only way to transfer the oil in commercial volumes is with pipelines to the refineries on the coast, where it comes refined and used both for internal use and for export. In Libya there are only five refineries, all on the coast except Sarir in the southeast. Each of these are in the territory controlled by a different tribe, and, for the moment, hostile to the Caliphate and, with the exception of Sarir, is situated away from oilfields that feed making it impossible for even small terrorist power, control of an entire field-pipeline-refinery system.
In fact, crude oil has little commercial appeal if it is not brought to the refinery. It has already been described here farmyard refineries which were made in Syria. But the intelligence still seems to have discovered signs of this activity in Libya despite the apparent shortage of fuel in large parts of the territory. While Libya has a long history of smuggling of oil derivatives in the last year we have not been discovered incidents of smuggling of hydrocarbons to any degree of refining. Also, while in Syria the oil operations, are all in densely populated areas and close to each other, in Libya the distances between the key elements of the entire network are too high.
All this leads to a twofold conclusion. There is still time to consolidate a recognized form of government to end the civil war and may require UN intervention and support to hunt the terrorists before the Caliphate can profit from Libyan oil infrastructure.
But, at the same time, you can not underestimate the damage that can still cause the Isis now that it is again on the offensive nor can we ignore the fact that the ambitions of the caliphate were until now mainly limited by the scarcity of available jihadists. In recent months, however, have more than doubled the actual on Libyan territory and you can not overlook the attractiveness already demonstrated by the "franchise" of the Caliphate is to young Muslims around the world and towards each of the diverse tribes scattered in the infinite territory Libyan.
Dum Romae consulitur - While Rome Talks, as Lyvius wrote talking about the military situation in North Africa in 219 BC - It seems that the port infrastructure of Zueitina, south of Benghazi, was hit by terrorists who, for the first time, attacked by sea ...
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