Militants find sanctuary in central, south Libya to regroup and plot a comeback
Arms trade, smuggling and human trafficking are rampant in lawless and desolate deserts
Aseries of military victories over extremist Islamist groups along Libya’s Mediterranean coastline has forced hundreds of militants, including Daesh fighters, to seek refuge in the vast deserts of the North African nation, already home to militias from neighbouring countries, crossborder criminal gangs and mercenaries.
Libya’s lawless, desolate centre and south provide a sanctuary for militants to reorganise, recruit, train and potentially plot for a comeback. That is especially important at a time when the Daesh group lost not only its urban holdings in Libya but is crumbling in Iraq and Syria.
In Libya’s remote stretches near the borders with Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Algeria, Niger and Tunisia, multiple armed groups already operate freely. Arms are easily available. Human trafficking and cross-border smuggling, especially fuel, are rampant and lucrative.
Lack of effective border controls has allowed militiamen fighting the Sudanese and Chadian governments to set up camp inside Libya. Alongside them came soldiers-forhire from places as far afield as Cameroon. Tribal and ethnic rivalries frequently boil over into deadly strife.
Militants “travel back and forth near the southern borders and all the way to the central parts of the country, robbing travelling cars and attacking civilians,” said Brig-General Abdullah Nour Al Deen of the Libyan National Army. “They sometimes work close to the borders since there is money to be made from smuggling and arms trading.”
The migration of the militants comes after rivals drove them out of coastal cities like Sirte, Benghazi, Sebratha and Derna. Their dispersion into the desert undermines prospects for a return of stability in oil-rich Libya.
Claudia Gazzini, the International Crisis Group’s senior Libya analyst, said Daesh militants were generally lying low in the desert south of the coastline, moving in small convoys so as not to attract attention or just going home. Others, she explained, were active around Sirte, staging occasional attacks against their adversaries.
Going forward, she said, Daesh remnants will likely try to influence and win over groups opposed to General Khalifa Haftar, the Egyptianbacked commander of Libya’s national army who has been fighting militants.
“We are already seeing signs that this may have already happened,” she said.
Sensing danger, Egypt has begun to closely monitor its borders with Sudan and Libya, fearing the area could turn into a major staging ground for attacks inside its territory. Egypt has said Daesh militants fighting its security forces in the Sinai Peninsula receive arms and fighters from Libya. It said militants behind recent deadly attacks against Christians were trained in Libya and sneaked into Egypt across the porous desert border.
Like the rest of Libya, the desert towns and villages in the country’s central and southern regions have seen law and order vanish since the 2011 ouster and death of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Across the country, militias — many of them with Islamist ideologies — have carved out fiefdoms, imposing their will on local administrations.
Some estimates put the number of full-time militiamen in Libya at around 120,000 and Daesh fighters around 1,000, but there is no way to independently verify these figures.