ISIL strike at Libya’s water and oil supplies
Political divisions leave infrastructure vulnerable and open the way for extremist group to exploit uncertainty
ISIL militants have started attacking Libya’s oil and water pipelines, posing a deadly new threat to the country, Libyan defence officials said.
The extremist group lost its Libya headquarters in the central coastal city of Sirte in December after a six-month offensive by militias backed by US air power, but Libyan officials and foreign diplomats said its fighters had fanned out across the southern desert, as they sought to exploit Libya’s political divisions.
Three separate ISIL groups have been identified in different parts of the Sahara and, officials said, were striking at the country’s vulnerable oil and water infrastructure. One group is near the Mabrouk and Zalla oilfields on the edge of the Sirte Basin, home to the bulk of Libya’s oil production, with a second south-west of Sirte, near the town of Bani Walid. A third operates near the border with Algeria, where French officials said ISIL and other groups including Al Qaeda have supply lines crossing into Chad and Niger. Attacks in recent weeks by this group on electricity infrastructure near the city of Sabha have hit power supplies to the capital.
“While [ISIL] no longer controls territory, the fight against terrorism is far from finished,” the head of the United Nations support mission in Libya, Martin Kobler, told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.
“The country’s borders remain porous. Terrorists, human and weapons traffickers and criminal gangs continue to exploit the security vacuum.”
American air strikes have already hit one group, with re- ports of at least 80 militants killed on January 19 when two US-B2 Spirit bombers targeted two ISIL camps in the desert south-east of Sirte.
Photographs of the bombing sites show that the militants were well organised, with dugouts, jeeps, satellite telephones and supply dumps. Meanwhile, ISIL holds two enclaves in the eastern city of Benghazi, fighting against the Libyan National Army led by Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar, the country’s most powerful military commander.
Libyan officials said in recent weeks ISIL had hit pipelines of the Great Man-Made River, the network on which the capital Tripoli and many coastal towns depend for much of their water supply. Other attacks have hit electricity pylons and oil pipelines. “They work and move around in small groups,” Libyan intelligence official Mohamed Gnaidy in the western city of Misurata said. “The only solution to eliminate them in this area [in the desert] is through air strikes.” The Pentagon said it remained ready to launch further air strikes when ISIL targets present themselves, while French forces in Niger patrol the border with Libya to strike extremist convoys crossing between the countries.
Libya’s efforts to combat ISIL are complicated by a civil war that has raged since 2014. Misurata-based militias back the UN- recognised Government of National Accord in Tripoli, while Field Marshall Haftar supports the rival Interim Government in Al Bayda, and fighting continues between the two.