As night fell in
Libya’s eastern city
of Benghazi, masked men pulled a senior officer from his car at
a traffic light.
Captain Abdelsalam al-Mahdawi remains unaccounted for after
being abducted on Jan. 2. He was poised to identify suspects in
another attack: the murder of Benghazi police chief Faraj el-
Drissi in his house in November. Two months earlier, U.S.
Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed
when an armed crowd stormed the U.S. mission in the city.
A Libyan protester shouts slogans
during a demonstration to demand that militias made up of former rebels
who helped oust dictator Muammar Qaddafi disband and join the army and
police in Benghazi, Libya on Dec. 28, 2012. Photographer: Abdullah
Doma/AFP/Getty Images
Benghazi was singled out as the focus of efforts to restore
security by Interior Minister Ashour Shuwail when he took office
last month. The government has been struggling to rein in
militias and armed groups that have hampered rebuilding efforts
since Muammar Qaddafi’s ouster and death in 2011. While overall
stabilization is key to increasing output in the home of
Africa’s largest proven crude reserves, Benghazi takes on
special importance as the birthplace of Libya’s uprising and the
city where Islamists have also secured a solid foothold.
“Failure to get this right now will not allow Libya to
reach its potential, and will see it as an unstable oil-
producing nation, rich in cash but dominated by armed gangs,”
Duncan Bullivant, chief executive officer of Henderson Risk
Ltd., a U.K.-based security analyst, said in a telephone
interview.
Libya, where companies including
ConocoPhillips (COP) and
Eni SpA (ENI)
pump crude, has restored
production to more than 1.5 million
barrels a day, close to pre-war levels. It aims to lift that to
1.6 million barrels by February and 2 million within two years,
Oil Minister Abdulbari al-Arusi said last month. The country has
also announced plans to build more refineries. Much of the
Libya’s reserves are located in the east of the country.
Economic Risk
“Delays in normalizing the security situation” are among
the key risks to an economy that’s recovering rapidly after oil
output plunged during the uprising, the
International Monetary
Fund said in a
May report.
Shuwail is a native of Benghazi and was director of traffic
police under Qaddafi before switching to support the rebels in
the first days of the revolution that ended in October 2011. He
was cleared by a commission tasked with purging Qaddafi-era
officials from office.
An incident less than a week into his tenure showed the
scale of the challenge.
Security forces in jeeps and pickup trucks flashing hazard
lights raced to the walled police headquarters in the early
hours of Dec. 16, joining dozens of police, army, and pro-
government militia, who formed a circle around the building.
They were seeking to stop gunmen from freeing two men held on
suspicion of killing El-Drissi.
Ghost-Town
A military police officer said at the scene that he had
been woken up by his commander and told to round-up his men
because trouble was expected. Nearly two hours later, four
police officers were dead after militants attempted to storm the
building, which has been under special guard ever since.
The violence has turned the city into a virtual ghost-town
most nights, in contrast to other Libyan cities such as Misrata
which are bustling.
“People are staying off the streets,” for fear of getting
caught up in the crossfire, aviation student Mohammed el-Gadri
said.
Among the groups whose influence Shuwail has pledged to
combat are Islamists such as Ansar al-Shariah, which the U.S.
says is linked to Al-Qaeda and played a role in the killing of
Stevens, a charge it denies.
Islamist groups have been present in eastern Libya since
the 1990s when they took part in a failed uprising against
Qaddafi. They have denounced the holding of elections and want
to establish an Islamic state.
Officials Killed
The government has blamed much of the violence on them,
including a bombing outside the headquarters of the public
prosecutor in Benghazi on New Year’s Eve, the third attack on
the building in 12 months, and the killings of about 20
prominent security officials in the city last year.
Another problem for Shuwail is the movement backing
independence for Cyrenaica, the eastern region of which Benghazi
is capital. Last year, local militias blocked the coastal
highway linking the city to Tripoli. Some tribal leaders say
greater autonomy is key to the region’s survival because the
central government is neglecting them as Qaddafi did.
For many in Benghazi, patience is wearing thin. Since the
killing of Stevens, the Save Benghazi protest group has staged
several rallies to keep up pressure on militias to disarm and on
the government to make them do so.
Speaking after the standoff at Benghazi police
headquarters, Mohamed Magarief, speaker of the country’s new
parliament, promised action.
“This city has suffered enough oppression, tyranny,
injustice, deprivation, marginalization and neglect over the
last four years,’ .
