Slow start for Libya drive to disband unruly militias

TRIPOLI — Twenty-four hours after Libya’s police force opened its doors for the thousands of militia members to join its ranks, only 100 had signed up, signalling the long road the government faces to bring the unruly militias to heel.

The militias, which fought to unseat former leader Muammar Gaddafi, are now the biggest threat to stability in Libya, clashing regularly with each other in violent turf wars and undermining the authority of the country’s new rulers.

The interim government, the National Transitional Council (NTC), wants to amalgamate the militias into the police force and army. The NTC’S chief said this month that if they do not comply, the country risks being dragged into a civil war.

But on the evidence of the trickle of people signing up at the Interior Ministry’s main recruitment centre in a Tripoli compound, most militia members are still reluctant.

An official at the site said that between Saturday morning and Sunday morning they had signed up 100 people.

There are no reliable figures for the number of fighters in Libya’s militia units, but they could number in the hundreds of thousands.

Those that did turn up to seek jobs in the new police force were not from the heavily-armed and well-organised militias from outside Tripoli which pose the biggest headache for the NTC.

Instead, the prospective

new recruits were from smaller militias which in any case did not have the resources to challenge for power. Some recruits said they were there because their units had not paid them.

On Sunday morning, about a dozen young men, mostly dressed in civilian clothes and holding their green identity cards, stood outside the registration office, located in a busy Tripoli district near Nasser University.

They had filled out the job application to join the police and were waiting to be called so that they could sign an employment contract. Once the contract is approved, each new recruit would be paid 600 dinars ($450) a month, an interior ministry official said. — Reuters