Time to Get Serious About Libya: Max Boot, Commentary, Mar. 8, 2016— The consequences of allowing Islamic State to establish a new stronghold in the Libyan city of Sirte continue to grow worse.
Why Libya Must be the Next Front in the War Against ISIL: Matthew Fisher, National Post, Feb. 21, 2016— Canada’s larger training mission with the Peshmerga in northern Iraq will not get underway until the back half of May, but preliminary discussions are already underway about what must come next.
Tunisian Clash Spreads Fear That Libyan War Is Spilling Over: Farah Samti & Declan Walsh, New York Times, Mar. 7, 2016 — Fear engulfed Tunisia on Monday that Islamic State mayhem was spilling over from neighboring Libya, as dozens of militants stormed a Tunisian town near the border, assaulting police and military posts in what the president called an unprecedented attack.
How Tunisia Became a Top Source of ISIS Recruits: Yaroslav Trofimov, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2016— The cradle of the Arab Spring, Tunisia remains the freest Arab democracy.
A Radical Idea to Rebuild a Shattered Libya: Restore the Monarchy: Declan Walsh, New Tork Times, Feb. 24, 2015
ISIS Leader Moves to Libya: Pete Hoekstra, IPT, Feb. 16, 2016
Africa’s Terror Crescent: Wall Street Journal, Feb. 16, 2016
Liberals’ Vision for Canadian Forces Unlikely to be Swayed by Public Consultations: John Ivison, National Post, Mar. 7, 2016
TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT LIBYA
Max Boot
Commentary, Mar. 8, 2016
The consequences of allowing Islamic State to establish a new stronghold in the Libyan city of Sirte continue to grow worse. Not only is Islamic State now poised directly across the Mediterranean from Europe, and not only is it now in a position to threaten or even seize chunks of the Libyan oil production — Islamic State is also now in a position to threaten neighboring states.
On Monday, dozens of extremists attacked the Tunisian town of Ben Gardane located next to the Libyan border. Some 36 of the attackers were killed along with 18 Tunisians, security forces and civilians alike. President Beji Caid Essebsi of Tunisia blamed Libyan-based ISIS extremists. This is evidence that the chaos of Libya continues to spillover and threaten the nascent democracy in neighboring Tunisia, the only success story to emerge from the Arab Spring.
The U.S. indirectly bears some responsibility for this dangerous state of affairs, having helped to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 without doing nearly enough to stabilize Libya afterward. President Obama is trying to ameliorate the consequences of this dereliction of duty by staging air strikes against ISIS targets. Last month, U.S. aircraft bombed the Libyan town of Sabratha, killing a reported 43 people, including an ISIS leader. The U.S. also has reportedly deployed Special Operations Forces to Libya and has gotten permission from Italy to fly armed drones to defend them should they come under attack.
These are positive steps, but it is crucial that the American response not be limited to killing terrorists, who can always be replaced. There is a desperate need to establish a functioning state in Libya that can police its own territory, and that will not happen without active U.S. leadership along with that of our allies.
The United Nations has recognized a new Unity Government in Libya but turning it into a reality will require pressure from the U.S. and other states, using a combination of sanctions and suasion (in the form of weapons and aid deliveries), to force the various Libyan factions to come together. If and when the state comes together, it would make sense to dispatch an international peacekeeping force to help it establish its authority. Italy has been rumored to have offered 5,000 troops for such a force; other nations would need to ante up as well.
For too long, the U.S. and the rest of the West have turned a blind eye to the growing disorder in Libya, repeating the same mistake that they have made in Syria and Yemen. No one wants to intervene in yet another Arab civil war. Unless the U.S. leads an international coalition, however, the situation will only get worse, ISIS will only get stronger, and the threat to nearby states — including European states — will only grow.
WHY LIBYA MUST BE THE NEXT FRONT IN THE WAR AGAINST ISIL
Matthew Fisher
National Post, Feb. 21, 2016
Canada’s larger training mission with the Peshmerga in northern Iraq will not get underway until the back half of May, but preliminary discussions are already underway about what must come next. And what must come next is Libya. Turning the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant back in Mesopotamia is the first part of a larger battle to rein in this gang of murderous religious zealots whose ambitions are much greater than simply dominating a stretch of desert between Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Although a long way from being defeated, ISIL appears today to be on the defensive in Iraq. But the Daesh brand — and those who claim an allegiance to it and its dream of a vast caliphate where Sharia law is supreme — continues to grow in other parts of the Islamic world, from southeast Asia to Afghanistan, sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb.
This is especially true of Libya, which has been allowed to devolve into a lawless state since NATO warplanes deposed Moammar Gadhafi. Libya’s importance is obvious: it sits at the crossroads between southern Europe and Sudan, Chad, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, where Islamic terror is encouraging others in equatorial Africa, and it has a malignant influence on events in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt. ISIL is already causing grief for Egypt and putting pressure on Israel because of its machinations in the Sinai Peninsula, where the independent Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping organization is led by a Canadian — Maj.-Gen. Denis Thompson, who once ran Canada’s war in Kandahar.
How will NATO respond if ISIL becomes seaborne and uses the Maghreb as a launching point for terrorist attacks on southern Europe or to disrupt trade in the Mediterranean? After all, unlike Iraq and Syria, Libya is practically in Europe’s backyard. Tripoli is less than 500 kilometres from Sicily, eastern Libya is about 300 kilometres from Crete, and even closer to Malta, with its strong ties to Britain and membership in the European Union.
What role Canada and the West might play across this much broader canvas is already being talked about in Ottawa, at NATO headquarters in Belgium and at announced and unannounced meetings in Washington, Europe and the Middle East.
Gen. Joseph Dunford, the Marine who is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke late last month of the need “to take decisive action” against ISIL in Libya. U.S. jets and drones carried out air strikes three days ago against an ISIL training camp on the Mediterranean coast near Tunisia, and U.S. special forces are undoubtedly already conducting covert operations in the neighbourhood.
An Italian three-star general is to lead an eventual international military mission in Libya, although what shape it will take and what its mandate will be remains unclear. The British will help the Italians. The French are to be involved, too. Ottawa has said almost nothing publicly about its potential involvement there. However, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan had private talks about Libya in Europe in December and again this month.
In many respects an international operation against ISIL in Libya would be tailor-made for Canada, given the Trudeau government’s championing of what has been described as Canada’s unique expertise in helping failed states with a comprehensive approach that includes governance, humanitarian aid and development.
Another factor that should compel Canada to act: we bear some responsibility for the chaos now gripping Libya. A Canadian general, Charlie Bouchard, ran the successful NATO air campaign against Gadhafi in 2011. Regrettably, neither Canada — which contributed CF-18 fighters to that push — or its allies, had any plan to restore order in Libya once Gadhafi was gone. The anarchy that followed the dictator’s death created a vacuum that ISIL has inevitably and ruthlessly exploited.
Canada’s special forces, already assisting the Peshmerga in Iraq, will likely be involved in Libya. But these commandos should only be a small part of an eventual whole-of-government approach. Using parts of Canada’s Afghan template, that could involve conventional forces serving as trainers, as well as experts from half a dozen government ministries and agencies to help establish the stability that Libya desperately needs. The bedlam in Libya presents the UN Security Council with an opportunity to pass a resolution authorizing an international response to Libya. For once, Western, Russian and Chinese interests may be in sync on such an undertaking.
ISIL’s rise in Iraq and Syria happened largely because the West and its Arab allies were asleep to the consequences, including the refugee crisis it spawned. The key for Canada and its allies is to get ahead of ISIL for once, and end its ability to dominate the narrative. Eliminate the jihadists in Libya before they can establish the deep roots there that they have now in Iraq and Syria.
TUNISIAN CLASH SPREADS FEAR THAT LIBYAN WAR IS SPILLING OVER
Farah Samti & Declan Walsh
New York Times, Mar. 7, 2016
Fear engulfed Tunisia on Monday that Islamic State mayhem was spilling over from neighboring Libya, as dozens of militants stormed a Tunisian town near the border, assaulting police and military posts in what the president called an unprecedented attack. At least 54 people were killed in the fighting in the town, Ben Gardane, which erupted at dawn and lasted for hours until the security forces chased out what remained of the assailants. An enormous stash of weapons was later found.
The authorities said at least 36 militants were among the dead. The others were a mix of security forces and civilians, including a 12-year-old girl. It was unclear where the assailants had come from, although some witnesses reported that they had local accents and had pronounced themselves as liberators. But President Beji Caid Essebsi of Tunisia, increasingly alarmed about the Islamic State’s expansion in Libya, blamed the militant group. In a televised address, he suggested that the motive was to create a new Islamic State territory on Tunisian soil, similar to the 150-mile stretch it controls in Libya.
The authorities sealed the border, erected checkpoints in Ben Gardane and used bullhorns to announce a curfew as security officials searched for other attackers. A nearby beach resort popular with Western and local tourists was closed. It was the second time in a week that the area around Ben Gardane had been assaulted, and the first time that Tunisian military facilities had been targeted. Mr. Essebsi said that the Tunisian forces had expected such an attack. “Most Tunisians are in a state of war against this recklessness, against these rats,” he said, referring to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
In the past year, the Islamic State has exploited Libya’s chaotic civil war not only to establish control of coastline around the central town of Surt, but also to establish bases near the Tunisian border. Tunisian troops raised their alert after Feb. 18 when American airstrikes against an Islamic State camp in Sabratha, 60 miles from the border, stoked worries that some fighters would try to slip into Tunisia.
Considered a conspicuous success story among the countries upended by popular uprisings in 2011, Tunisia has of late steeled itself against a growing Islamist threat. In two high-profile attacks last year, militants targeted Western tourists at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, and at the beach resort of Sousse where they killed 38 people, mostly British tourists. Tunisian officials said the attackers had been trained in Libya.
The American airstrikes last month against an Islamic State training camp in Sabratha, which killed at least 43 people, had sought to eliminate a militant commander linked to the Tunis and Sousse assaults. He is believed to have been killed. American commanders say such strikes are part of an effort to contain the spread of the Islamic State while the United States and its allies consider a much wider campaign of airstrikes against the group in Libya.
In an effort to stop militant infiltration, Tunisia has built a 125-mile-long berm along half of the border with Libya, and says it has contracted American and German firms to install electronic surveillance equipment to further secure that border.
Still, tensions are rising. In violence that foreshadowed the Ben Gardane assault, Tunisian soldiers clashed with militants on Wednesday near the town, killing five people. After the Ben Gardane assault, the Tunisian security forces said they had discovered a large cache of weapons including rifles, explosives and rocket launchers. They blocked nearby border crossing points at Ras Ajdir and on the island of Djerba, a beach resort home to a small population of Tunisian Jews.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry urged locals to remain indoors but assured them that the situation was “under control.” Although militants had never targeted a military installation in Tunisia, 12 people died in a suicide attack on a bus carrying members of the presidential guard in Tunis in November.
HOW TUNISIA BECAME A TOP SOURCE OF ISIS RECRUITS
Yaroslav Trofimov
Wall Street Journal, Feb. 25, 2016
The cradle of the Arab Spring, Tunisia remains the freest Arab democracy. It has one of the region’s most developed economies and highest literacy rates. And it is also by far the largest source of foreign fighters heading to join Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Between 6,000 and 7,000 Tunisians have left the small North African country to fight for the self-proclaimed caliphate—several times more than from much-more populous Algeria or Egypt. As many as 15,000 others have been barred from international travel because Tunisia’s government suspects them of planning to follow suit. The Tunisian exodus is remarkable because it defies conventional wisdom that has long sought to explain terrorism by evoking “root causes” such as political repression by dictatorial regimes, or the frustrations of poverty.
The working-class Hay Ettadhamen suburb of Tunis, a spread of drab concrete buildings that wouldn’t be out of place in parts of Spain or Eastern Europe, is one of the hot spots for such departures to Syria and Iraq.
Ahmed Amine Jebri, a 27-year-old architecture student, counted some 20 neighbors who had joined Islamic State: a childhood friend with whom he used to play the “Counter-Strike” videogame, a classmate, an older man who sold dried fruit and cigarettes in a corner store. Several of them are now dead.
“So many people have left from here, and quite a few of them were rather well-off,” Mr. Jebri said. “Some in the neighborhood believe these guys are fools who had gone to Syria to get killed. But many others say they are now in paradise with the virgins.” Increasingly, Tunisians also form the backbone of Islamic State’s growing presence in neighboring Libya. A U.S. airstrike last week on an Islamic State training camp west of Tripoli killed as many as 50 people, most of them Tunisian fighters.
So what explains this paradox? In a country that remains deeply divided, the answer, predictably, depends on whom you ask. Tunisia’s functioning democracy remains an exception: Arab Spring revolutions elsewhere have either turned into civil wars, as in Syria, Libya or Yemen, or were crushed by re-established dictatorships, as in Egypt.
Yet even in Tunisia, popular disappointment is spreading, said Moncef Marzouki, a human-rights activist who served as democratic Tunisia’s first president from 2011 and until the end of 2014. While the country’s Jasmine Revolution ushered in democracy, it failed to spur economic growth or curb rampant corruption, he said.
“Why do we have educated people, people with jobs, who go to ISIS?” wondered Mr. Marzouki. “It’s not the matter of tackling socioeconomic roots. You have to go deeper and understand that these guys have a dream—and we don’t. We had a dream—our dream was called the Arab Spring. And our dream is now turning into a nightmare. But the young people need a dream, and the only dream available to them now is the caliphate.”
Mr. Marzouki’s successor as president, 89-year-old Beji Caid Essebsi, served as foreign minister and parliament speaker in prerevolutionary administrations. Many other former officials returned to power after the 2014 elections. To some, especially in disadvantaged areas, the new Tunisia isn’t that different from the Tunisia of old.
“In Tunisia, a policeman can, just as before, stop a citizen on the street and slap him,” said Rafik Ghaki, an attorney who represents hundreds of Tunisians who returned from battlefields in Syria and Iraq, usually to face immediate detention. “A woman who wears the veil, a young man with a beard—they still feel discriminated” against.
To more-secular Tunisians, such explanations ignore what they see as the ambiguous attitude of postrevolutionary governments toward Islamist extremists. The local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Tunisia’s administration after the first elections in 2011, and remains a minority partner in the current government.
An amnesty declared soon after the revolution freed imprisoned jihadists and allowed others to return from exile. The government initially tried to entice radical groups to participate in politics. It began to crack down on Islamist radicals after their attempt to storm the U.S. Embassy compound in 2012, followed by a series of assassinations and terrorist attacks.
To critics—including some relatives of jihadists—the government is still far too lenient to those who incite radicalism. “These people have political cover here. Nobody interferes with them,” said Mohammed Iqbel Ben Rejeb, president of the Rescue Association of Tunisians Trapped Abroad, a group that unites some 250 families of Tunisians who joined extremist groups in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
Mr. Ben Rejeb’s brother Hamza—who moves in a wheelchair and has to use both hands to raise a glass of water because of his muscular dystrophy—left for Syria in 2013 along with six friends. Realizing how inhospitable Syria was, the brother managed to return home quickly. “When a person is hypnotized, he doesn’t even know why he’s going there,” Mr. Ben Rejeb said. “It is like a virus.”
A Radical Idea to Rebuild a Shattered Libya: Restore the Monarchy: Declan Walsh, New Tork Times, Feb. 24, 2015—The deserted royal palace here, hidden behind locked gates and an overgrown garden, stands as a monument to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s virulent rejection of Libya’s monarchy.
ISIS Leader Moves to Libya: Pete Hoekstra, IPT, Feb. 16, 2016 —The barbaric and elusive Chechen commander who recruited British executioner "Jihadi John" has moved to Sirte, Libya to assume control of ISIS operations in the terrorist organization's metastasizing Mediterranean caliphate.
Africa’s Terror Crescent: Wall Street Journal, Feb. 16, 2016—For all the attention attracted by the battle against Islamic State in the Middle East, Islamism is also wreaking havoc in Africa. Jihadist groups control territory stretching from the Horn of Africa to the Mediterranean coast and south to Nigeria, and that crescent was ablaze this weekend.
Liberals’ Vision for Canadian Forces Unlikely to be Swayed by Public Consultations: John Ivison, National Post, Mar. 7, 2016—Within days, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan will launch public consultations on the new review that will mandate the future size of the Canadian Forces, what kind of equipment they will use and the theatres in which they will operate.
