MISRATA, Libya—Even as foreign powers step up pressure against
Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the militant group has expanded in
Libya and established a new base close to Europe where it can
generate oil revenue and plot terror attacks.
Since announcing its presence in February in Sirte, the city on
Libya's Mediterranean coast has become the first that the militant
group governs outside of Syria and Iraq. Its presence there has
grown over the past year from 200 eager fighters to a roughly
5,000-strong contingent which includes administrators and
financiers, according to estimates by Libyan intelligence
officials, residents and activists in the area.
The group has exploited the deep divisions in Libya, which has
two rival governments, to create this new stronghold of violent
religious extremism just across the Mediterranean Sea from Italy.
Along the way, they scored a string of victories—defeating one of
the strongest fighting forces in the country and swiftly crushing a
local popular revolt.
Libya's neighbors have become increasingly alarmed.
Tunisia closed its border with Libya for 15 days on Wednesday,
the day after Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide
bombing on a bus in the capital Tunis that killed 12 presidential
guards.
Tunisia is also building a security wall along a third of that
border to stem the flow of extremists between the countries. Two
previous attacks in Tunisia this year that killed dozens of
tourists were carried out by gunmen the government said were
trained by Islamic State in Libya, which has recruited hundreds of
Tunisians to its ranks.
This burgeoning operation in Libya shows how Islamic State is
able to grow and adapt even as it is targeted by Russian, French
and U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria as well as Kurdish and Iraqi
ground assaults in Iraq.
On Thursday, nearly two weeks after Islamic State's attacks on
Paris, French President Franç ois Hollande and Italian Prime
Minister Matteo Renzi met in the French capital where both said
Europe must turn its attention to the militants' rise in Libya. Mr.
Renzi said Libya risks becoming the "next emergency" if it is not
given priority.
In Libya, Islamic State has fended off challenges from
government-aligned militias and called for recruits who have the
technical know-how to put nearby oil facilities into operation.
Libyan officials said they are worried it is only a matter of time
before the radical fighters attempt to take over more oil fields
and refineries near Sirte to boost their revenues—money that could
fund attacks in the Middle East and Europe.
Sirte is a gateway to several major oil fields and refineries
farther east on the same coast and Islamic State has targeted those
installations in the past year.
"They have made their intentions clear," said Ismail Shoukry,
head of military intelligence for the region that includes Sirte.
"They want to take their fight to Rome."
Islamic State is benefiting from a conflict that has further
weakened government control in Libya. For nearly a year, the U.S.
and European powers have pointed to the Islamic State threat to
press the rival governments to come to a power-sharing agreement.
Despite a United Nations-brokered draft agreement for peace
announced in October, neither side has taken steps to implement
it.
A new U.N. envoy, Martin Kobler, was appointed this month to
break the stalemate, part of efforts to find a political solution
to counter the extremists' expansion.
"We don't have a real state. We have a fragmented government,"
said Fathi Ali Bashaagha, a politician from the city of Misrata who
participated in the U.N.-led negotiations. "Every day we delay on a
political deal, it is a golden opportunity for Islamic State to
grow."
Since early 2014, two rival factions have ruled Libya,
effectively dividing the country. In the east, an internationally
recognized government based in the town of Tobruk has won the
backing of regional powers Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. In
the west, an Islamist-leaning government based in Tripoli has
relied on Misrata fighting forces for political legitimacy.
Islamic State militants have successfully taken on and defeated
myriad Libyan armed factions, including the powerful militias from
Misrata which were the driving force behind the revolt that
unseated longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. Misrata, 150
miles west of Sirte, has recently come under sporadic Islamic State
attacks.
Members of Misrata's militias, who are loosely under the control
of the western government in Tripoli, say they lack the support to
mount an offensive against Islamic State. Earlier this month, the
Tripoli government forced the Misrata militias into a humiliating
prisoner swap with Islamic State.
"There will be no meaningful action without a political
agreement," said Abdullah al-Najjar, a field commander with the
Brigade 166, an elite Misrata militia that engaged in a protracted
fight with Islamic State on the outskirts of Sirte earlier this
year. "You have to know you're going to war with a government that
is going to back you."
This month, the U.S. launched an airstrike against Islamic State
in Libya, its first against the group outside of Syria and Iraq.
Officials said they believe the strike killed one of the top
deputies of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The deputy,
Abu Nabil al-Anbari, had been sent to Libya last year to establish
the group's presence there.
In recent weeks, a flood of foreign recruits and their families
have arrived in Sirte—another indication the group is becoming
increasingly comfortable in its North African base, according to
residents and activists from Sirte and Libyan military
officials.
Islamic State has called on recruits to travel to Libya instead
of trying to enter Syria, while commanders have repatriated Libyan
fighters from Syria and Iraq, Libyan intelligence officials
said.
"Sirte will be no less than Raqqa," is a mantra often repeated
by Islamic State leaders in the Libyan city during sermons and
radio broadcasts, several residents and an activist from the city
said. Raqqa is the group's self-declared capital in Syria.
Like its mother organization in Syria, Islamic State has
appointed foreign "emirs" in Sirte to administer its brutal brand
of social control. Music, smoking and cellphone networks have been
banned while women are only allowed to walk the streets in full
cover. Morality police patrol in vehicles marked with Islamic
State's logo and courts administering Islamic law, or Shariah, as
well as prisons have been set up.
With a population of about 700,000, Sirte was long known for
being Gadhafi's hometown and a stronghold of his supporters.
Soon after Libya's uprising ended more than four decades of
Gadhafi's rule, he was killed in Sirte by fighters from
Misrata.
Earlier this month, Islamic State reopened schools in the city,
segregating students by gender and strictly enforcing an Islamic
State approved curriculum. On Fridays, the traditional day of
communal prayer, the group organizes public lectures and residents
are often herded into public squares to witness executions and
lashings of those who run afoul of the strict rules.
The seeds of Islamic State's growth in Libya were planted after
Gadhafi's ouster. In the almost exclusively Sunni Muslim Libya, the
Sunni extremist group exploited tribal and political rifts that
lingered after the strongman's death, particularly around
Sirte.
Islamic State lured extremists from other groups under the
Islamic State umbrella.
By June, Brigade 166, one of western Libya's strongest armed
brigades, abandoned a monthslong battle with the militants on
Sirte's outskirts. In August, Islamic State cemented their grip on
the city, bringing the last holdout district under their control,
officials and residents said.
Islamic State crushed an armed uprising in August in three days.
It was sparked by local residents angered over the group's killing
of a young cleric who opposed the radicals. Militants publicly
crucified several people who participated in the revolt and
confiscated homes.
The brutality moved the internationally recognized government in
eastern Libya to plead for military intervention by Arab nations
and a lifting of a U.N. arms embargo on Libya in effect since 2011.
But the support never came.
Unlike in Syria, the group has struggled to provide basic
services. Gas stations are dry and residents are expected to
smuggle in their own fuel—as long as it is not confiscated by
Islamic State.
Hospitals have been abandoned after Islamic State ordered male
and female staffers be segregated. The ill must travels miles to
other cities for treatment, a trip that is often accompanied by
difficult questioning and searches at Islamic State
checkpoints.
"No services, just punishment," said Omar, a 33-year-old civil
engineer who fled Sirte after taking part in the failed uprising
against Islamic State. "Sirte has gone dark."
Despite the challenges, Islamic State has big plans for Sirte. A
recent edition of their propaganda magazine, Dabiq, featured an
interview with Abu Mughirah al-Qahtani, who was described as "the
delegated leader" for Islamic State in Libya. He vowed to use
Libya's geographic position—and its oil reserves—to disrupt
Europe's security and economy.
About 85% of Libya's crude oil production in 2014 went to
Europe, with Italy being the largest recipient. About half its
natural gas production is exported to Italy.
"The control of Islamic State over this region will lead to
economic breakdowns," the leader of the Libyan operation said,
"especially for Italy and the rest of the European states."
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 29, 2015 20:25 ET (01:25 GMT)
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