Chapter 6 - Challenges to containing ISIL's expansion in Libya

Five years after the 2011 intervention against the regime of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya is politically divided between two rival governments and parliaments; military coalitions are fighting each other; and UN attempts to forge a government of national unity are making no visible progress. The collapse of state institutions, combined with the country’s state of chaos and internal fragmentation over the past five years have provided opportunities for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) affiliates to grow stronger and gain some control over territory in Libya. Fearing that ISIL could use Libya as its new staging ground, regional actors and Western capitals are beginning to discuss possible military strategies to confront the group in Libya. No matter how alarming its recent advances in Libya are, it remains that careful analysis will be required to avoid unpredictable results and make the Libyan conflict harder to resolve ultimately. Such analysis must address the drivers propelling ISIL forward in North Africa, the territory it controls in Libya, the number of followers it commands, and tactics.

ISIL affiliates in Libya control the former Qaddafi stronghold of Sirte, where they have been able to establish themselves and carry out their gruesome practices, including public crucifixions and beheadings. They also dominate a 200-kilometre stretch of coast running east from Sirte to Ben Jawwad and have carried out attacks on oil terminals further east. ISIL also has a presence (but does not control territory) in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, where it has been conducting guerrilla warfare in some neighbourhoods in which it enjoys an alliance of convenience with other armed groups fighting against a common enemy, the so-called Libyan National Army. Until June 2015, ISIL affiliates also had a significant presence in Derna, an eastern hub of radical Islamist activity, but they were expelled by a rival Islamist alliance ideologically closer to Al-Qaeda. Finally, ISIL has a proven ability to carry out hit-and-run operations in both eastern, and especially western Libya, through a network of cells, including in Tripoli, Sabratha, Bani Walid and Jufra.

Estimates differ wildly as to the group’s membership, ranging for example from 2,000-3,000 (UN) to 5000-6,000 (US). The lower end of that scale appears more realistic, if only because there is a tendency to inflate numbers, not least by ISIL itself. After all, the group has made its Libyan expansion an important part of its propaganda message since October 2015, conjuring the spectre of the country as a jump-off point into the Maghreb, the Sahel and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Europe.

In the Libyan context, ISIL’s rate of growth is alarming, as there were probably fewer than 1,000 followers in Libya in mid-2014. Fundamental to understanding its apparent success in Libya is the question of how it grew, both numerically and spatially.

Its initial growth in 2014-2015 appeared chiefly driven by the ideological boost the group received from its success in the Levant. This allowed ISIL’s fledgling Libyan affiliates to attract new followers from the many other armed groups, Islamist or not, that exist in the country. It was most successful in drawing members from Ansar al-Sharia, in part because it assassinated leaders of the group who refused to pledge allegiance to it. In the chaos and militarily fragmented landscape of post–2011 Libya—and especially after civil war broke out in summer 2014, dividing the country into two rival camps—the budding ISIL brand found fertile soil.

Local chaos and a security vacuum also help explain its apparent success. ISIL’s biggest success to date in Libya, the control of Sirte and surrounding towns since February 2015, came not so much as a result of ISIL’s strength but rather was the by-product of weakness and resentment which the residents harboured towards other groups with greater military might. Dominated by tribes that mostly remained loyal to the former regime (it is Qaddafi’s birthplace), Sirte was neglected by the new Libyan authorities after 2011 despite the extensive destruction it suffered during the war. Not only was it left to its own devices, but revolutionary armed forces from Misrata repeatedly rounded up Sirte residents that they accused of being Qaddafi collaborators. Locals sought the protection of the local branch of Ansar al-Sharia, which ISIL later incorporated, as a means to protect themselves against Misratan arbitrary detention. They did it willingly.

Local rivalries between non-Islamist security forces was another factor that contributed to ISIL’s rise in Sirte. Throughout 2013 and 2014, Misratan forces, attempting to control Sirte and use it as a launching pad to attack their rivals further east, attacked and gradually annihilated the Zawiya Martyrs’ brigade, which until 2014 was the main army-affiliated unit operating on the outskirt of Sirte.

Similar dynamics explain ISIL’s expansion into neighbouring small towns such as Harawa, which surrendered in an agreement brokered by town elders to avoid a bloody battle. ISIL’s take-over of Ben Jawwad was even more emblematic of how the security vacuum in Libya enabled its penetration: from their nearby base in Nawfiliya, ISIL militants simply began occasionally to drive patrols into Ben Jawwad without facing any local resistance, until they declared it part of their territory in January 2016. ISIL‑affiliated militias were thus able to capture several locales in the Gulf of Sirte with only a few hundred men and practically no fighting.

Conflicting domestic narratives about ISIL contributed to undermining efforts to confront the group in Libya. Following the political crisis of summer 2014, Tripoli authorities and their military allies belittled the budding presence of ISIL in Sirte and constantly referred to “the ISIL-lookalike in Sirte” as the fabrication of Qaddafi loyalists in exile. Conversely, groups allied to the internationally-recognised government in al-Bayda believed that it was their political foes in Tripoli and Misrata who were behind the attacks carried out by the militants in Sirte. On both sides of Libya’s institutional divide political infighting overshadowed the fight against ISIL.

The arrival of foreign ISIL emissaries^{Footnote 46} after the summer of 2015 changed the manner in which ISIL governed its territory. Over time, ISIL affiliates imposed more draconian rule in the areas they controlled. For example, compared to their relatively peaceful presence in Harawa and Ben Jawwad throughout 2015, since early 2016 ISIL has become more brutal: in Ben Jawwad and at the checkpoints on the road they control, ISIL affiliates arrest all those identified as being members of the police, army or local armed groups. They also round up oil company employees and anyone working for the government. In Sirte, public executions have increased.

ISIL affiliates have also increased their targeted attacks on the oil and gas infrastructure in the Sidra area, just east of the territory they control. In January 2016 alone, they managed to destroy seven crude oil tanks at the Sidra and Ras Lanuf oil terminals. They launched a suicide attack on a checkpoint controlled by the Petroleum Facilities Guards (PFG) in Sidra and beheaded some of its members. Although Libya’s oil and gas infrastructure continues to be an important target of ISIL attacks, there is no evidence ISIL affiliates in Libya are currently able to tap into oil sales as a source of funding. Instead, their sources of funding appear to be local taxation (including smuggling), extortion, the looting of banks, kidnapping and contributions from wealthy sponsors. According to ISIL public messaging, the purpose of the group’s attacks on Libya’s oil and gas infrastructure is to deprive the current Libyan state of revenues. By doing so, it hopes to accelerate the collapse of the Libyan state (and governments), which it considers ruled by apostates. By shutting down export lines from Libya, they also hope to create economic turmoil in those countries that depend on crude oil imports from Libya.

The increased violence that ISIL affiliates in Libya have displayed since early 2016 and the simultaneous optimistic rhetoric voiced by the United Nations Special Envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, regarding the imminent creation of a Government of National Accord have led many foreign capitals to believe that Libya is moving towards the formation of a united Libyan polity and, as a result, a united military front against ISIL.

For now, the West’s hope for a united Libyan response to ISIL remains wishful. This is in part because mainstream Libyan militias tend to avoid generally outright confrontation, especially if there is a risk of tribal escalation of violence. Libyan leaders are chiefly interested in controlling their own territory and hesitate to stray too far from their home turf. They have also been suspicious, ever since ISIL appeared, that entanglement with it would weaken their defence against their conventional enemies. Finally, even if they have come to recognise that ISIL represents a serious long-term threat, the dialogue and coordination that would be necessary among rival security actors is practically non-existent.