by Wayne White
A robust new military challenge to what passes for the Libyan central government has further destabilized the country and placed Western and other diplomatic missions there in greater danger. Although definitions for “failed states” vary, there should be no doubt now that Libya has crossed that line — one [...]]]>
by Wayne White
A robust new military challenge to what passes for the Libyan central government has further destabilized the country and placed Western and other diplomatic missions there in greater danger. Although definitions for “failed states” vary, there should be no doubt now that Libya has crossed that line — one it has been flirting with for quite a while. Under the circumstances, it is now time for the US, and other governments with diplomatic and civilian missions in Libya, to give serious, prompt consideration to evacuating their personnel.
Libya’s lacking security fundaments
The Libyan situation has been tenuous, violent, and jolting from crisis to crisis particularly since last year. Most militias of various local, tribal, and ideological affiliations that fought against Muammar Qadhafi’s regime remain under arms, in part because of Libya’s failure to establish a sizeable, fully trained national army or police force. They clash with each other and assert local autonomous rights, with some backing factions in the Libyan parliament, the General National Congress (GNC). Without other means of maintaining security, the government keeps a number of militias on its payroll for just that reason.
The conflicting militias have caused discord on the streets of Tripoli and the large eastern city of Benghazi; they control neighborhoods and other key pieces of real estate — even sometimes menacing the government for which they supposedly work.
The two dominant militias affecting government affairs in Tripoli have been the Islamist “Central Shield,” based in Libya’s third largest city, Misrata, and a group of secular-oriented militias based in the mountain region centered upon Zintan. They are aligned, respectively, with the Islamist and secular wings of the GNC.
This division within the GNC has significantly paralyzed that fairly elected body charged, among other things, with overseeing the drafting of a constitution as a prelude to the election of a permanent legislature.
The GNC’s original writ ran out in early February, so it extended its own mandate to finish the appointment of a constitutional drafting committee and to maintain continuity. Ever since, it has been branded by many Libyans — as well as self-appointed federalist rivals in eastern Libya — as illegitimate, with calls for it to step down.
The experiences of Libyan prime ministers reflect the dangerous instability plaguing the country. The GNC dismissed longstanding Prime Minister Ali Zeidan in March amidst a tiff over the weak Libyan navy’s failure to stop a tanker with bootleg crude from leaving a port controlled by upstart eastern Federalist and militia commander, Ibrahim Jathran. Yet Zeidan soldiered on despite being kidnapped in late 2013 by an Islamist militia. Then the GNC named Abdullah al-Thinni interim prime minister for two weeks. After gunmen attacked his family compound, al-Thinni resigned, but continues to serve pending the naming of a replacement.
In addition to its seriously flawed, erratic security and central authority, Libya’s governance at all levels is dysfunctional. To a great extent, Qadhafi is to blame. Inheriting a rather decentralized state from the late King Idris, Qadhafi played tribes and regions against each other to maintain power for 42 years. Qadhafi’s bizarre, ramshackle “Jamahiriya” concept of governance degraded rather than reinforced a sense of Libyan civil society, and important governmental and technical skills were woefully neglected. Libya is hugely dependent on foreign companies and contractors for a host of services.
The last key pillar that crumbled from underneath Libya’s waning post-Qadhafi societal stability was the implosion of the country’s oil exports from roughly 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2012 to only around 200,000 bpd since early this year. Since 2013, most export terminals and inland oilfields have been shut down by a mix of eastern federalist challengers, angry workers, disgruntled guards, or local militias.
Enter General Haftar
Libya’s latest travails stem from a robust challenge to the central government from the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) led by former General Khalifa Haftar. Haftar denounced the central government back in February, but his appearance went almost unnoticed outside Libya.
On May 16, however, forces organized by Haftar struck extremist militias in Benghazi (especially Ansar al-Sharia) with troops, artillery and even helicopters “to cleanse the city of terrorists.” Intense, bloody fighting continued through much of the weekend resulting in over 200 casualties. On the 18th, Haftar loyalists, reinforced with pro-secular militia elements from Zintan, attacked the GNC in Tripoli, ransacking parliament, and seizing a member and two staffers for allegedly aiding extremists. Pro-Haftar Colonel Muktar Fernana declared the “freezing of the GNC.”
Since May 18, in the east, Haftar has secured the support of two Libyan Air Force (LAF) bases, and federalist renegade Jathran. Libya’s Special Forces commander even instructed his men in Benghazi to join Haftar’s effort. Then, the LAF’s most senior officer, Col. Gomaa al-Abbani, declared his support for Haftar on the 20th, quickly followed on the 21st by the Interior Ministry, Libyan UN Ambassador Ibrahim al-Dabashi (who said Haftar’s “Operation Dignity of Libya” was “not a coup…but a nationalist move”), as well as the biggest GNC political bloc, the secular National Forces Alliance (NFA). NFA leader Mahmoud Jibril said Libya had been “drowning in a swamp of terrorism.”
In addition, former Prime Minister Zeidan declared his support for Haftar from European exile, and sitting Prime Minister al-Thinni has called upon the GNC to stop working. Late on the 21st, Haftar appeared on TV, calling upon the country’s judiciary to form a “civilian presidential high council” to name a cabinet and oversee a transition toward the election of a new parliament.
Haftar’s challenge might seem refreshing to some, but the situation on the ground has deteriorated markedly. Following al-Abbani’s statement of support, various elements launched rockets against and burned offices on LAF bases in Tripoli. Libya’s Navy commander was wounded in an assassination attempt in Tripoli yesterday. On the 20th, a Chinese engineer was murdered by gunmen in Benghazi.
In Tripoli, more fighting took place May 21, with rockets falling on a residential area last night. GNC members tried to convene at another locale to elect a prime minister, but gave up without a quorum and after coming under rocket fire. That prompted GNC Speaker Nuri Abu Sahmain’s call on the 21st for Misrata’s Islamist “Central Shield” militia to take the field against Haftar to protect the remainder of the GNC and re-secure parliament’s original premises. In response to Sahmain’s call, Misrata’s notoriously tough militiamen were observed taking up positions in the capital this morning.
Foreign diplomats facing more danger
The foreign diplomatic community could hardly remain unaffected. Already, gunmen had attacked the Russian Embassy in Tripoli in October 2013, after which Zeidan reiterated his “unlimited commitment to the…security” of all diplomatic missions. Yet, as we have seen, Zeidan could not even protect himself.
The Jordanian ambassador was kidnapped by Islamic militants in March to free an extremist held in Jordan, with the ambassador released in April in exchange for the prisoner. The Jordanian Embassy was subsequently evacuated. Two kidnapped Egyptian diplomats were only freed in January when Egypt agreed to swap a hard-line Islamist militia leader detained in Cairo. Both cases set dangerous precedents.
After recent threats, Algeria sent its special forces to extract its embassy staff from Tripoli on May 16, and then evacuated all Algerian state oil personnel on the 19th. The Saudi Embassy staff also left that day. Likewise, personnel of several major oil companies and private businesses have fled overseas.
In this veritable maelstrom of violence amidst uncertainty regarding which side controls what in Tripoli, all foreign diplomatic missions and other foreigners are at considerable risk. With Islamic extremists under vigorous attack, there is also a greater danger that such elements will attempt to retaliate against foreign governments imagined to encourage or welcome what Haftar & Co. have been doing.
This makes the US a prime target. A number of Islamic militant elements (like Ansar al-Sharia, formally declared a terrorist group by Washington), militias, or gunmen could attack the US embassy in Tripoli. If so, there is no effective Libyan security to bar the way.
Last week, the Obama administration began positioning US military assets in Sicily to carry out a potential emergency extraction of embassy personnel, including 200 troops from the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force and MV-22 Osprey helicopters. On the 20th, the Pentagon said 60 more Marines were sent plus more Ospreys (now totaling 8). To avoid flying into an already “hot” situation in which a facility is already under attack or surrounded (like the one that wounded 4 US Navy SEALS aboard Ospreys in an aborted attempt to rescue US civilians in South Sudan last December), it would be prudent to execute that contingency plan as soon as possible.
During my State Department career, I participated several times in final deliberations over such decisions. There were always those who opposed withdrawing (regardless of the risk of staying), arguing that leaving the countries in question would reduce the US’ ability to influence events on the ground. Of course, in this case, for quite some time now the US and other Western diplomatic missions have had precious little impact on what has been unfolding in Libya.
Photo: The French embassy in Tripoli, Libya was bombed on April 23, 2013. It was the first attack on the French embassy in the capital.
]]>by Wayne White
The Libyan Parliament’s abrupt dismissal last week of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan takes Libya another step closer to even greater confusion and instability. With an oil-starved central government also drifting closer to bankruptcy, Libya’s options going forward have become more daunting. If the international community continues to focus elsewhere [...]]]>
by Wayne White
The Libyan Parliament’s abrupt dismissal last week of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan takes Libya another step closer to even greater confusion and instability. With an oil-starved central government also drifting closer to bankruptcy, Libya’s options going forward have become more daunting. If the international community continues to focus elsewhere in the region while Libya merits high-level diplomatic attention, the prospects for finding a way to halt Libya’s decline will worsen.
The latest disruptive snit was triggered by the escape last week of a North Korean-linked tanker from the federalist rebel-controlled eastern Libyan oil terminal of Es-Sider with a cargo of unauthorized crude. Zeidan ordered the government’s puny navy to intercept it and bring it to a government-controlled port. The tanker was hit by Libyan naval gunfire, but eventually escaped amidst poor weather.
Eastern rebels claimed the cargo had reached its destination on March 14, but a Libyan government official said it was still in the Mediterranean on the 15th. Finally, late yesterday, US Special Forces, acting on the request of the Libyan and Cypriot governments, seized the tanker (the “Morning Glory”) from the few armed rebels guarding it just south of Cyprus.
Earlier, however, an angry parliament (despite the government’s weak navy), chose to blame Zeidan, and voted him out of office on March 11 — ordering him to remain in Libya pending charges. On the 12th, Zeidan fled to Europe. Zeidan was replaced by temporary Prime Minster and Defense Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, but only for two weeks while parliament, the General National Council (GNC), casts about for a more permanent figure. Al-Thinni had only been in his defense post since August 2013.
The tanker’s escape triggered such a flap because Tripoli has been trying to isolate and squeeze the shadow eastern government of former anti-Qadhafi rebel leader Ibrahim Jathran. Jathran has been facing rising discontent because the eastern government has been without enough cash to pay government officials, police, and even disaffected Libyan National Oil Corporations (NOC) workers stationed in the east and assisting in the terminal closures. If the illegally lifted crude had generated payments to new accounts established by Jathran & Co. instead of those of NOC in Tripoli, the funds would have reinforced Jathran’s position.
Meanwhile, on GNC orders, a small contingent of Libyan army troops and a larger force of battle-hardened, notoriously formidable pro-government militiamen from Misrata, Libya’s 3rd largest city, moved east to “liberate” rebellious oil ports and block further illicit shipments. This force compelled Jathran’s troops to fall back from the city of Sirte on the way to Jathran’s area of control on March 11th.
Nonetheless, on the 12th, GNC President Nouri Abu Sahmain, who still wields most of the authority over the military in Libya despite al-Thinni’s appointment, ordered a halt to the advance, giving the eastern rebels “two weeks at most” to restore normal operations at the oil ports before resuming the government’s military advance. The reasons for this reverse were unclear, but the GNC could be skeptical of a successful offensive 200 miles from Sirte to the nearest rebel terminal.
The halt, however, also probably relates to a rivalry between the two powerful militias typically called upon as the government’s military “firemen” (and the GNC factions with which they identify). In addition to the Misrata force, there is the powerful militia from the town of Zintan, south of Tripoli. The Zintani militia has been associated with the parliament’s secular parties. So far, the two militias have not squared off against each other. But that could change if Misrata’s fighters make major gains in the east that boost the power of the GNC’s Islamist wing that the Misrata militia generally supports.
Added to the central government’s own Islamic-secular rivalries that all too often have paralyzed parliament is the threat of going broke. With oil exports down to around 300,000 barrels per day (out of a normal 1.3 million), the government is running low on cash, losing $8 billion in oil revenues last year alone. Al-Thinni declared last week that the government needs an “emergency budget” to deal with its security challenges. Nonetheless, a GNC already unpopular for extending its own mandate last month and gridlocked over lesser matters might not respond despite the gravity of the situation.
Of concern to the international community is that as long as so much of the country remains beyond central authority, a large amount of arms from Qadhafi’s former arsenals will continue flowing across Libya’s borders. A panel of UN experts recently submitted a 97-page report to the Security Council stating that Libya has “become a primary source of illicit weapons.” The panel is investigating alleged shipments to 14 countries. A number of its findings relate to attempts to transfer particularly dangerous shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. One such shipment, stopped by Lebanon, was bound for Syrian rebels.
Moreover, especially lawless portions of Libya like the desert southwest and some areas in the east adjacent to Egypt serve as safe havens for Islamic extremist elements staging from Libyan territory into neighboring states or assisting foreign jihadists. This has been true of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (IQIM) elements lunging into Algeria and Mali, other groups supplying munitions to militant elements in Egypt following the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, and shipments into Tunisia aiding terrorist cells there.
In American minds especially, Libya is firmly associated with Muslim extremism, the result of the Benghazi attack of Sept. 2012. Despite the existence of such groups (like eastern Libya’s dangerous Ansar al-Islam), however, in the defining GNC July 2012 elections, the secular National Forces Alliance, a collection of likeminded smaller parties, and dozens of independents dominated, with Islamists coming in second. In fact, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya secured only 10% of the vote.
So, unlike the Brotherhood’s decisive electoral victory in Egypt, a majority of Libyans, at least the first time around, voted against an Islamist-dominated future (and, naturally, were horrified by the Benghazi attack and its adverse implications for ties with the US and the West).
With the GNC’s standing shaky because of its self-extended mandate and legislative paralysis, constitutional drafting to be completed in June, and votes on approving the constitution and a permanent parliament to occur this year, the next six months seems to be a make or break period for what is to become of Libya. There already has been a disturbing indicator. Turnout last month for the election of the constitutional drafting body was dismal, reflecting widespread cynicism toward the entire political process.
A conclave of mostly Western and Arab Gulf foreign ministers to discuss Libya did take place in Rome on March 6. Instability and arms smuggling topped the agenda. US Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that “Libya is at a pivotal moment,” adding that “Libyans did not risk their lives in the 2011 revolution just to slip backward into thuggery and violence.” Yet, little in terms of concrete measures aimed at stepping up the pace — and urgency — of foreign diplomatic engagement came out of the meeting.
Clearly, the international community is far more focused, in the Middle East at least, on halting the fighting in Syria, pursuing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and trying to push the Iran-nuclear negotiations to the finish line. Sadly, however, the prospects for real progress on the first two of those issues are exceedingly poor. In fact, with Western-Russian relations taking such a beating over the Ukraine crisis, the Russian-US led effort aimed at brokering a Syrian ceasefire — already pretty iffy — might collapse.
In any case, it’s time for Western and Arab governments that came together to support Muammar Qadhafi’s overthrow so robustly to make a strenuous effort to help salvage the mess that has developed since. Under the circumstances, without, say, bringing the various key players in Libya together at a neutral venue like Geneva, there is little reason to believe Libya’s domestic agenda in the coming months will play out as planned.
The interception of the “Morning Glory” could provide an important opportunity for such an initiative. Jathran’s so-called Prime Minister Ab-Rabbo al-Barassi said on the 15th that Jathran was ready to negotiate an end to the oil terminal blockade if the government would end its military threat. Now, with the prospect of his own illicit oil exports gone, an already financially desperate Jathran might be ready for serious talks.
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