The Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) ended on January 2 a fire that raged for days among tanks in Libya’s largest oil export terminal of Es-Sider, but the militia violence fed by the implosion of governance that caused it continues. Indeed, the levels of suffering, civilian casualties, refugees, and those internally displaced have increased steadily. The talks between Libya’s rival warring governments slated for today have been postponed. Meanwhile, extremist elements are taking greater advantage of the ongoing maelstrom.
The NOC managed to put the fire out, but three days of normal Libyan oil exports were destroyed. Of course, with Libyan crude exports already down to less than 400,000 barrels per day (only 1/3 of normal output), the fire’s impact on global markets was minimal.
Libya’s low exports since mid-2013 pose serious fiscal challenges for the country. The internationally recognized, relatively moderate House of Representatives (HOR), elected in June 2014, headed by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, and driven to take refuge in the small eastern city of Tobruk, is in fiscal crisis. The Libyan Central Bank, so far neutral between rival governments, has drawn down Libya’s currency reserves to cover spending. With two hostile governments, there is also no budget for the allotment of funds in 2015.
One might think government spending and a budget would be the least of Libya’s concerns. But beneath the government standoff and rule of local or extremist armed elements around the country, much of the Qadhafi-era’s largely socialist economy remains. If the Central Bank fails to pay government employees, those of the National Oil Corporation, personnel keeping most ports functioning, workers struggling to maintain the electric grid, civil police, and others life would grind to a halt. Goods would stop flowing, businesses would lose customers, and people would not be able to obtain goods and services at the most basic level. Fraud-ridden and often dysfunctional, presently there is an economy just the same.
Tripoli’s Power
Credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz
The Es-Sider inferno was triggered by a rocket fired by Islamic Dawn (LD), the robust Islamist militia comprised of fighters from Libya’s third largest city of Misrata, near Tripoli. LD is the muscle behind the rival Tripoli government.
Since last August when it propped up the Islamist portion of the former parliament, the General National Council (GNC) as a “government,” LD has been gaining ground. Its ability to push nearly 400 miles eastward, to menace Libya’s twin oil ports of Es-Sider and Ras Lanuf plus their supporting oil fields to the south illustrates LD’s rising power at the expense of the HOR and its loyalist allies.
Likewise, 500 miles to the west, LD has been driving toward Libya’s other major oil and gas terminal of Mellitah, near the Tunisian border. Thinni has been struggling to halt this other LD drive using local tribal militias and air strikes. A NOC statement from late December, fearing the loss of Mellitah, said Libyan hydrocarbon production would fall below the levels needed to even meet Libyan domestic demand.
Bloody Benghazi
A severe impediment for the HOR and its loyalist allies is the more extremist militia grouping continuing to dominate much of Libya’s eastern second largest city of Benghazi. Led by the formidable al-Qaeda associated Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL), a militant alliance— despite see-saw fighting—has managed to hold various Libyan military units and former General Khalifa Haftar’s polyglot secular forces allied with the HOR in check.
The commitment of so many HOR military assets to the military meat-grinder in Benghazi to prevent ASL from moving eastward toward Tobruk has weakened its efforts elsewhere. Eleven more died and 63 were wounded in Benghazi on Dec. 22. In fact, most killed in clashes across Libya die in Benghazi. Eastern Libyan jihadists car bombed the HOR’s Tobruk hotel on Dec. 30 wounding 3 deputies.
Human Toll
The UN Support Mission in Libya and the UN’s High Commission for Human Rights announced on Dec. 23 that nearly 700 hundred Libyan civilians have died as collateral casualties of Libyan violence since August; many times that have been wounded. Combatant casualties would likely push fatalities over 1,000. This death toll is lower than those emerging from Syria and Iraq from the regime-rebel civil war in the former and Islamic State-related violence in both. Still, the UN warned commanders of Libyan armed groups they could be charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with criminal atrocities.
The refugee situation is far worse. By September, 1.8 million Libyan refugees had sought shelter in Tunisia. Added to those elsewhere, as in Egypt, refugees comprise approximately 1/3 of Libya’s entire population. Those in Tunisia have overwhelmed available humanitarian assistance, particularly now during the cold, rainy Mediterranean winter. Almost 400,000 Libyans are reportedly internally displaced.
No End in Sight
So far, diplomatic efforts seeking some sort of accommodation between Tripoli and Tobruk have been futile. Talks led by UN Envoy for Libya Bernadino Leon came to naught back in September. Leon tried to organize another round for Dec. 9, but this foundered due to more fighting triggered by a failed HOR effort to retake Tripoli. Leon reported to the UN Security Council on Dec. 23 that the two sides had agreed to meet today.
That initiative also collapsed. HOR airstrikes over the weekend against targets in Misrata (the home of the GNC’s “Libya Dawn” militia) came as a surprise. Two reportedly were wounded. An HOR military spokesman said the strikes were retaliation for renewed LD attacks against Es-Sider and Ras Lanuf where fighting has resumed. Yesterday a loyalist warplane struck a Greek tanker near the eastern port of Derna, killing two crewmen; a Libyan military spokesman claimed it was carrying militants.
Meanwhile, General David Rodriguez, head of US Africa Command, revealed on December 3 that “nascent” Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL or IS) training camps had been established in eastern Libya containing a “couple of hundred” militants. Fourteen Libyan soldiers were executed on Feb. 3 in southern Libya by a group calling itself the Islamic State of Libya. Even the more moderate Islamist GNC and LD, already hostile to ASL, condemned the killings. With Libya’s disarray and the grip of ASL and associated extremists over much of Benghazi plus areas nearby like militant-held portions of Derna, IS’s appearance at some point was inevitable.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Kharti in December chaired a meeting of his counterparts from Libya’s neighbors to express concern about the Libyan crisis’ regional impact. Weighing heavily on participants was the near conquest of Mali in 2013 by extremists, many staging out of and receiving munitions from Libya’s lawless southwest. There also has been arms smuggling from eastern Libyan militants to Egypt’s Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis jihadists, many of whom affiliated themselves with IS in Fall 2014.
Increasingly concerned about Libyan jihadist spillover, French President François Hollande urged the international community today to address Libya’s crisis. In a two-hour interview with France Inter radio, Hollande ruled out unilateral French intervention in Libya itself, but is establishing a base in northern Niger 60 miles from the Libyan border to help contain the menace. Last year, another French base was set up near the Malian border with Libya.
The longer Libya’s chaos remains on the global back burner, the nastier its impact will be in Libya and beyond. Crises left to fester sometimes find their own way to the front burner.
]]>by Wayne White
Libya’s chaos and violence may seem like a continuum of painful replays. However, as the situation festers, the risk of extremist elements gaining a more dangerous foothold and broader freedom of action increases. Indeed, since the beginning of this year, militant Islamists have gained ground overall, undermining what little governance remains. Making matters worse, a Libyan Supreme Court decision has gone against the newly elected and relatively secular government.
Debating whether Libya is a failed state is academic even though the country has resembled one for the past six months. Even a senior Libyan official admitted back in August that most “factors at the moment are conducive to a failed state.” Unfortunately, Libya’s problems won’t be contained. Militant extremists and terrorists thriving amidst this mess will spread violence even farther beyond the country’s practically non-existent borders than they have already.
House of Cards
Most recognizable forms of authority in Libya have steadily imploded this year with the explosion of greater violence in the country’s two largest cities (Tripoli and Benghazi), the flight of foreign workers and embassies amidst kidnappings and murders, and the disarray affecting all manners of central governance (though its writ was already limited). In fact, Libya never evolved beyond the dominance of militias that refused to disarm following the struggle against Muammar al-Qadhafi.
Shaky stability in the capital city of Tripoli until mid-2014 depended on a wary balance of power between two powerful militias employed by Libya’s parliament, the General National Council (GNC). The Islamist militia comes from Libya’s third largest city of Misrata, while the other secular nationalist militia is from the tough Zintan mountain region south of Tripoli. The Misrata militia (now “Libya Dawn”) was linked to Islamist members, and the Zintani forces to its secular caucus. At the time, the GNC had a modest Islamist majority.
But the election in June of a secular majority permanent House of Representatives (HOR) triggered the collapse of the militia power balance. The larger Libya Dawn secured the upper hand over the Zintanis, seizing Tripoli. Libya Dawn reconvened mainly the Islamists from the GNC, proclaiming the body the true Libyan government.
The HOR fled east, taking refuge near the Egyptian border in the small city of Tobruk. Ex-General Khalifa Haftar’s effort since spring 2014 to crush extremists like the al-Qaeda affiliated Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) had experienced mixed results. Then, after solid gains against ASL forces in Benghazi in October, the beleaguered HOR embraced Haftar as acting on behalf of the newly elected parliament.
But the Libyan Supreme Court declared the internationally recognized HOR unconstitutional on November 6, arguing that the committee that prepared the election law for the June poll, which elected the HOR, violated Libya’s provisional constitution. The court remains, however, in Tripoli under Islamist occupation and originally was not asked to address the legality of the HOR, making its ruling questionable. Moreover, even if there were some inconsistencies involving election procedure, they pale against Libya Dawn’s violent seizure of Tripoli and revival of a rump GNC that no longer has any legal mandate whatsoever. The most recent election, quite an achievement under the circumstances, at least reflected voters’ preferences.
A map featuring Libya’s major cities and border states.
Consequently, despite urgings from some quarters that the HOR be abandoned, the UN and most foreign governments have not done so. As of Nov. 17, Turkey and Chad appeared to be the only exceptions. Embracing the court decision, the rump GNC has offered a national dialogue, something that would have been of value prior to Libya’s descent into far greater chaos in 2014. Earlier this year, when there was more to work with, I had discussed the advantages of such a meeting being held at a neutral venue abroad and being overseen by the UN along with the governments that backed the anti-Qadhafi struggle in 2011.
Of course, Libya has only spiraled further downwards since then. But because both governments share the need for revenue, Libyan exports still rebounded to more than 800,000 barrels per day (BPD) in September (although still only 1/3 of capacity). Following the court decision, however, Libya Dawn sought to control the country’s oil, seizing the 300,000 BPD western El-Sharara field. But Sharara was shut down, with Zintani forces blocking the pipeline to its northern export terminal of Zawiya. Then a security guard strike over unpaid wages closed Tobruk’s Hariga export terminal last weekend. These closures have driven exports down to barely 500,000 BPD.
Whether emanating from a now more aggressive Libya Dawn or the beleaguered ASL (most likely the latter), a number of bombings have also hit HOR-controlled locales in eastern Libya. One went off in the town of Shahat during a meeting there between HOR Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni and UN Libyan Envoy Bernadino Leon On Nov. 10. Several car bombings occurred two days later. One hit a busy street in front of the Tobruk hotel housing the HOR; another hit the airport used by al-Thinni near the town of Bayda. A third bomb blew up in Benghazi (where fighting between the forces of Haftar and the ASL has intensified again).
The fighting in Benghazi became so intense that Leon arranged a 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire on Nov. 19 so the Red Crescent could evacuate civilians and casualties from affected areas. The UN Security Council meanwhile blacklisted ASL branches in both Benghazi and Derna.
Located between Benghazi and Tobruk, Derna has been an extremist hotbed since the 1990s. Youthful demonstrators there declared their allegiance to the so-called Islamic State’s (ISIS or IS) “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in late October. With Haftar’s air assets sorely limited, Egypt probably took aim at jihadi targets there with airstrikes on Nov. 12, despite Egyptian denials. Egyptian airstrikes have previously hit Tripoli and Benghazi. Fighter-bombers from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have also staged through Egypt against Benghazi’s extremists.
Spillover Effect
Libya remains a vast arsenal of weapons, ammunition and explosives. The Sinai-based Beit al-Maqdis, which has sworn allegiance to IS, continues to receive Libyan munitions despite Egyptian countermeasures. The Jihadi group killed 33 Egyptian soldiers on Oct. 24. It struck again on Nov. 13, killing five soldiers and police. Near the northern end of the Suez Canal, militants or their smugglers had fired on an Egyptian Navy patrol boat wounding 5 sailors a day earlier, with eight others still missing. Sinai jihadists also released a lengthy video on Nov. 14 showcasing their suicide bombing that killed the soldiers in October, with participants shouting: “good news to al-Baghdadi!” The violence appears to be continuing unabated, with a likely Beit al-Maqdis bombing having hit a police checkpoint in a Cairo suburb just yesterday.
Libya also continues to export violence in various other directions. Four Tunisian soldiers were killed and 11 wounded in a Nov. 5 bus bombing. Much of the residual violence in Tunisia meanwhile stems from the cross-border infiltration of munitions from ASL. Malian jihadists, using Libya as an arsenal and for sanctuary, attacked a border village in Niger on Nov. 19, killing nine Nigerien security personnel.
With the West’s attention absorbed by IS, the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli/Palestinian affairs, and more, Libya has been woefully neglected. Yet the longer the country’s problems fester, the worse they will get. Indeed, even more IS-inspired connections with Libyan and associated jihadists surely will emerge in this chaotic environment. Simply watching Libya’s meltdown has achieved nothing.
]]>by Wayne White
The withdrawal of American and most other foreign missions from Libya has left its people more alone than ever before. Legitimate political authority and much of the economy has been seriously damaged. Despite temporary successes, none of the militias or Libyan army units flailing away at each other have [...]]]>
by Wayne White
The withdrawal of American and most other foreign missions from Libya has left its people more alone than ever before. Legitimate political authority and much of the economy has been seriously damaged. Despite temporary successes, none of the militias or Libyan army units flailing away at each other have scored enough gains to alter the overall situation. The international community should attempt to coax the leading players in this mess to assemble at a foreign venue where enough differences might be hashed out to dampen the raging violence and chaos.
The July 26 American withdrawal from Tripoli was part of a bunch of countries pulling out their embassy staffs, foreign workers, and other nationals. France followed suit on July 30 extracting its ambassador, several dozen French expatriates, and some British nationals. Spain abandoned its embassy on the 31st, and China evacuated hundreds of its workers to Egypt. The Greek Navy pulled out its diplomats and over 100 other foreigners today.
The escalation in clashes involving militia, renegade, and government forces is not the only driver. Doing any sort of work or business in Libya has become too risky. Kidnappings, murders, or combat-related deaths of foreigners spiked in 2014. On July 26, 23 Egyptian workers died when a militia rocket destroyed their Tripoli quarters. Unknown gunmen attacked and attempted to hijack a British convoy heading for the Tunisian border with some embassy staff on the 27th. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario rushed to Libya on July 31 to organize the departure of 13,000 Philippine workers after one worker was beheaded and a nurse gang-raped.
Over 100 Libyans have been killed and 400 wounded in Tripoli in recent weeks, most in the vicinity of the embattled airport where Libyan airliners are smoking hulks, the main terminal is shattered, and fuel tanks continued to burn through the 31st because of fighting involving artillery and rockets. Fighters have closed off approaches to southern Tripoli with earthen barricades. The main adversaries are the Islamist “Central Shield” militia from Libya’s 3rd largest city, Misrata (supporting Islamists in parliament), and the rugged nationalist militias from the mountainous Zintan area south of Tripoli (backing parliamentary secularists and renegade anti-extremist General Hiftar).
Had Tripoli not descended into such intense violence recently, the focus would have stayed on Benghazi where General Khalifa Hiftar (or Haftar) has continued his “Operation Dignity” against extremist Muslim militias, especially Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL). Hiftar has the support of more moderate militias, the Libyan Army’s Special Forces, the Libyan Air Force, and many police. Although suspect in some quarters because of his past CIA and distant Qadhafi regime connections, Hiftar was hailed by many Libyans as a potential savior from Islamic militancy.
More recently, however, Operation Dignity has run into trouble. Just in the past few days, ASL, with allied militants from the Benghazi Shura Council, downed a Libyan Air Force fighter jet, overran a Special Forces base, and today blew up Benghazi’s police headquarters seizing stocks of weapons at several facilities as they pushed back Hiftar’s forces.
With less protection than diplomats or other foreigners from fighting in their midst, and other violent crimes against Libyans now more common, Tunisia announced that up to 6,000 Libyans have been crossing the border per day this week to escape Libya’s dangerous lawlessness. Mustafa Abushagur, briefly Libya’s first post-Qadhafi prime minister and newly elected member of parliament, was kidnapped on July 29.
Typically, Libyans targeted for crimes are more affluent, skilled, politically active, or relatively Western-oriented. These people comprise most of Libya’s professionals and highly trained workers. As they flee, the country’s ability to function in terms of medical services, education, technical services, etc. erodes.
Governance Vacuum
Acting Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, who has recently been in eastern Libya, has been trying (unsuccessfully) to separate various warring parties. Meanwhile, in order to elect a new prime minister, Libya’s General National Congress (GNC), discredited and with its mandate expired, is set to pass the torch to the recently elected House of Representatives (HOR) on August 4. This was supposed to be a notable step toward a permanent legislature.
Islamists narrowly held the upper hand in the GNC, but not in the new HOR. With Tripoli in turmoil, the formal handover had shifted to Benghazi. But with fighting also raging there, it may have to be moved to the smaller city of Tobruk between Benghazi and the Egyptian border. Little has been heard of a commission appointed a couple of months ago to draft a final constitution.
Clearly, efforts to establish a measure of enduring central authority have all but foundered. Earlier this year, the GNC gamely set about to move the ball forward with elections (which came off with some difficulty) and a schedule for transition, despite considerable strife at that time. Now goals challenging enough a few months ago could be put on hold or become irrelevant in the face of more conflict, even societal implosion. In addition to previous indicators of collapse like crippled oil exports and iffy governance with alternative nodes of power often in confrontation, even shipping currency to the country’s banks is now crippled, strangling commerce, trade, and over normality.
Can New Diplomatic Ground Be Broken?
On the scene, foreign missions could achieve very little while hunkered down with violence flaring all round them. However, their departure, although symbolic of Libya’s failures, need not halt international efforts to assist.
In fact, outside engagement might make a difference. That would mean summoning under the aegis of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as many major Libyan players as possible. Under the circumstances, this should be daringly comprehensive, involving not only recognized officials, but also militia leaders, eastern federalist leader Ibrahim al-Jathran, and General Hiftar.
A few of the non-official actors in particular may never have come face to face before. Several extremist militias probably would not show up, especially ASL. However, that could make such an exercise more likely to succeed. With Islamist extremists already a common enemy among most of the rest (including quite a few relatively more moderate Islamists), putting aside or resolving differences in order to face such a dangerous foe more successfully could emerge as such a conference’s most compelling incentive for progress.
]]>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.
]]>by Wayne White
Instability and danger drove the international community to leave Libya to its own devices back in 2012, but Libya’s internal woes have only worsened.
NATO and its regional allies hoped spillover from Libyan strife could be kept to a minimum. Yet containment, not much of a coherent strategy in [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Instability and danger drove the international community to leave Libya to its own devices back in 2012, but Libya’s internal woes have only worsened.
NATO and its regional allies hoped spillover from Libyan strife could be kept to a minimum. Yet containment, not much of a coherent strategy in any case, has produced only limited success. Since there is no end in sight to Libya’s travails, the coalition that did so much heavy lifting to oust Muammar Qadhafi should explore whether external mediation can help his successors.
While seemingly endless rehashing of the September 2012 Benghazi attack continues to consume American political and media attention, Libya itself staggers from crisis to crisis, all woefully unreported. For weeks, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan and self-proclaimed eastern regional government chief Ibrahim al-Jathran have been involved in a face-off. Three key export terminals (west of the large eastern city of Benghazi) seized by Jathran last August have remained closed, cutting oil exports by more than a third. This has been compounded by closures elsewhere, reducing exports by about half, starving the shaky central government of much needed revenue.
Talks between the two sides continue, but so far without closure. Jathran, a former anti-Qadhafi rebel hero, has demanded a return to a regional oil revenue sharing ratio more favorable to the east that was in place during the pre-Qadhafi era, greater federalism to boost regional power, an inquiry into oil corruption, and an independent committee to oversee exports.
Meanwhile, parallel maneuvering continues. Several weeks ago Jathran tried to initiate exports directly to foreign markets bypassing Tripoli, but that was aborted when the government’s small navy fired warning shots toward a Maltese tanker seeking to load. For his part, Zeidan late last year negotiated the reopening of a major western Libyan oil field — closed by protesters — increasing Libyan oil that is getting out. In recent days, Zeidan also has been negotiating with a faction east of Jathran’s main area of control near Benghazi, hoping to reopen the Marsa al-Hariga terminal closer to the Egyptian border.
Both Zeidan and Jathran have their own separate problems. Some tribes previously supportive of Jathran’s eastern federalist cause have been grumbling that he is little more than a power hungry warlord, his shadow “cabinet” barely functions, and an Islamist leader within Jathran’s leadership quit at the end of 2013. Just today a Benghazi school was bombed, presumably by Ansar al-Sharia fanatics who remain at large in the city.
Unable to export oil independently because of the government’s naval presence and jitters among foreign buyers, Jathran’s regional government remains unfunded. Since late last month, formerly pro-Jathran Petroleum Facilities Guards at the closed terminals have been protesting his failure to replace their lost government pay.
Zeidan, from a small liberal party, has been beset with problems on various fronts. The two leading factions in Libya’s parliament, the General National Council (GNC), want to replace him, but these nationalists on the one hand and Islamists on the other cannot agree on a candidate. Last week four Islamists resigned from Zeidan’s cabinet. Last Wednesday unknown assailants attempted to assassinate Zeidan’s Deputy Prime Minister in Tripoli, which remains the scene of frequent gunfights.
The extreme weakness of the government’s small army in training was underscored last month. To wrest control of a strategic airfield at Sebha in Libya’s Saharan southwest from various local armed factions, Zeidan had to persuade a battle-hardened northern militia controlling the port city of Misrata to go down and restore the situation for him.
The GNC announced last week that elections for a 60-member constitutional assembly will be held on Feb. 20. That body would have 120 days to draft a constitution for submission to a national referendum. If approved, elections for Libya’s first post-transitional parliament will be held later this year. With a backdrop of division, disarray and violence, it hardly seems likely that this process will unfold without a host of problems.
Meanwhile, a Libya in turmoil continues to export violence. French military intervention thwarted a jihadist attempt to overrun Mali last year. With France drawing down its troop presence, attacks against government targets continue there with most munitions coming across the border from southwestern Libya (largely beyond Tripoli’s control). In addition to militants and associated smugglers, Qadhafi supporters also reportedly play a role in cross-border activity. To the north in Tunisia, the one “Arab Spring” bright spot, a shoot-out took place on the 3rd in which 8 died when Tunisian National Guard cadres stormed a hideout of Tunisia’s own Ansar al-Sharia group filled with explosives, small arms, and RPGs (materiel probably smuggled in from Libya).
Egypt, however, may face the most serious Libyan overspill. The jihadist Ansar Beit al-Maqdis group, based in Sinai but generating a number of attacks in Egypt proper, appears to be receiving much of its arms and explosives from Libya. Some believe the group may have secured some surface-to-air missiles via the Libyan black market, posing a potential threat to both Egyptian and Israeli commercial airliners.
Cracking down on this flow is difficult. The latest attempt involved the arrest by Egyptian authorities of a Libyan militia leader involved in arms trafficking. In response, gunmen promptly kidnapped five Egyptian diplomats in Tripoli. Cairo was forced to release the militia kingpin in order to secure the release of its diplomats.
Aside from nuclear negotiations with Iran, UN, US and broader regional diplomacy has focused on Syria or the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Yet, progress on Syria has been minimal and so long as the Netanyahu government remains in power and Palestinian divisions remain, there is only an extremely remote possibility that Secretary Kerry can break the impasse over core issues.
With such great difficulties facing Syrian and Israeli-Palestinian efforts, extending to Tripoli the opportunity to utilize the good offices of the UN with the backing of members of the international community seems reasonable. Ali Zeidan might shun such external involvement out of fear it would accord his rivals too much legitimacy. He might instead prefer to keep waiting out Jathran, hoping the latter will succumb to dissention within his own camp.
Nonetheless, even if Jathran caves, with Libya fast approaching a demanding political agenda related to elections and a permanent constitution (stacked alongside Zeidan’s own myriad problems), diplomacy could be useful in other respects. So, with Libyan-associated regional collateral damage considerable, little seems to be lost in offering an alternative, including the possibility of an overseas venue like Geneva for domestic dialogue.
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