In the northern heart of Libya
sits the town of Sirte.
It is the hometown of Muammar
Gaddafi, who was killed there by local militiamen after a NATO missile stopped
his convoy on their behalf.
A militia group from the western
town of Misrata had taken control of the town, much to the annoyance of the
local population. Local officials and elders complained about their fate. They
had been delivered to what many saw as an occupying force.
Older sympathies for Gaddafi went
underground. Loyalty to Gaddafi had been declared a crime. That section of
society muted itself for the time being.
This year, in late summer, the
Islamic State group appeared in Sirte and now flies its black flag from Sirte’s
tall buildings. Not 400 miles south of Europe sits this branch of the
caliphate. It is not to be easily dislodged.
How did IS seize Sirte? The
answer lies somewhere between the general political chaos in Libya, the fight
over oil and the disgruntlement of the old Gaddafi guard.
All around this
is the question of oil. The new report from the International Crisis Group
– The Prize: Fighting for Libya’s Energy Wealth (December
3) – has elements of the answer. It points a finger at the battle over oil
installations on the doorstep of Sirte.
The Tripoli government’s
Petroleum Defense Guards – led by Ibrahim Jadran – was to maintain order
in the oil installations. But Jadran fell out with the groups in Tripoli and
decided to operate on his own. He has secessionist tendencies, wanting Libya’s
east to break away.
Conflict between Jadran’s forces
and the militia from Misrata – Fajr Libya, also known as Libya Dawn
– broke out in December 2014. The battlefield comprised the oil
installations along the Gulf of Sidra.
Aerial bombing by Libya’s second
government, based in Tobruk-Bayda, against the Misrata forces turned the tide,
but did not give anyone the advantage. This has been the classic impasse in
Libya. No-one has been able to seize the day.
Warfare in that area has curtailed
oil production. An already desperate population hunkered down, jobless and
uncertain. Caught between two governments, the militias fought to control the
oil fields and oil installations. They destroyed as much as they won. Libya’s
vast oil and natural gas wealth is the prize.
Over the Tunisian border and via
the eastern provinces of Libya came fighters from outside the country, as well
as veterans of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and Ansar al-Shariah.
Chaos allowed them to settle in
Sirte. They were drawn to IS by its audacity. Their own groups seemed petty in
comparison to its grand designs. In Dernah, to the east, entrenched extremism
would have to be uprooted for IS to establish itself.
Even in Sirte, authority figures
– such as the Salafi cleric Khaled Ferjani – had to be killed before an IS
branch could be set up. An uprising of Ferjani’s followers was crushed in a few
days. His mosque was renamed to honour Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian
militant who founded al-Qaeda in Iraq – the ancestor of IS.
It provided IS with an excuse to
remove all those who opposed it within the city. It also allowed former Gaddafi
followers to sign up – not because they ascribe to the ideology of “the
caliphate”, but because they saw it (as a source told me) as a way out from
their isolation.
It has been convenient to say
that IS in Sirte is made up of foreigners. This is not entirely the case.
One of its most outspoken leaders
is Hassan al-Karami, who comes from Benghazi and was involved there with Ansar
al-Sharia.
Thus far, IS in Libya has no
access to the kinds of oil fields that it holds in Iraq and Syria. It is not
far from crucial oil infrastructure, but does not control it.
Over the final months of 2015, IS
has attempted to destroy oil pumping stations and other installations in
Mabruk, Dahra, Ghani, Bahi and elsewhere. The point, as the ICG report notes,
is not “to seize the fields but to damage the country’s economic lifeline in
order to weaken the state and allegedly to weaken as well European countries heavily
reliant on Libyan oil”.
Most of Libya’s oil last year
went to Europe, with Italy being the main beneficiary. This is what IS would
like to target.
For Libya to wake from this
nightmare seems impossible. Last Sunday, the two governments in Tripoli and in
Tobruk-Bayda agreed to hold elections within two years and to create a
political process for the interim period.
They have agreed to create a
government of national reconciliation. There are, however, forces within each
of the camps that are opposed to this idea of unity.
One of the most dangerous errors
would be if the Tobruk government persists in creating its own central bank and
oil ministry, duplicating those in Tripoli. Once these are established, the
divides will remain open. The feeling is that the UN forced this resolution
through – a UN dented by allegations that its previous envoy had accepted
favours from the United Arab Emirates to favour Libya’s UAE proxies.
It is as likely as not that this
reconciliation will be short-lived.
Human rights violations
are routine. A Human Rights Watch report –The Endless Wait: Long-term
Arbitrary Detentions and Torture in Western Libya (December 2) –
points out that thousands of political prisoners remain behind bars since 2011.
They have never been charged.
This provides no assurance to
Gaddafi loyalists that they will not meet a similar fate. IS, for them, is
a far more secure investment.
This article
originally appeared in Alaraby.
Vijay Prashad, director of
International Studies at Trinity College, is the editor of “Letters to Palestine” (Verso). He lives in
Northampton.
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