REUTERS
"We are free of Gaddafi but we are prisoners to chaos."
SABHA: Sitting on cement blocks, surrounded by shisha
pipes and machine guns, a dozen or so tribesmen guard a makeshift
checkpoint outside the main city in Libya's desert south.
They are there to guard against smugglers and criminals, who have
multiplied since Muammar Gaddafi's downfall in the 2011 war. They also
say they are ready to battle Islamist militants that Libya's neighbors
and Western nations fear are crossing the North African country's porous
borders.
"If I hear al Qaeda is here, I will kill them. We know what happened
in Mali and we won't allow it here, even if we only have rifles,"
Mohammed Wardi, 25, said as a war movie blasted from an old television
nearby. "We are here to protect Libya."
A French-led military campaign this year broke Islamists' hold over
the northern two-thirds of Mali, killing hundreds of al Qaeda-linked
fighters and pushing others into neighboring states like Niger and
eventually Libya, security officials say.
The men with Wardi are from the Tibu tribe, a black African ethnic
group that also lives in Chad and Niger, which along with ill-trained
tribal militias of former rebel fighters and a poorly-equipped national
army are trying to maintain security in Libya's southern desert
hinterlands.
The long-neglected region, with borders stretching more than 2,000
kms and home to major oil fields, has grown more lawless as the
country's new rulers - hundreds of miles away in Tripoli - struggle to
impose order on a country awash with weapons.
The south has seen rising violence, weapons and drug trafficking and
an influx of illegal immigrants, leading the national assembly to
declare the region a military zone, a decree the weak government has
little power to enforce.
"The south is dying and the government is ignoring us. Crime is
rampant, there are tribal animosities, smuggling and we are worried that
what is happening in Mali will spread here," said a local government
official, who declined to be identified.
"We are free of Gaddafi but we are prisoners to chaos."
IN NEED OF WEAPONS AND BINOCULARS
Even under Gaddafi, the south was poorly patrolled and smugglers
have long used the area - a crossroads of routes to Chad, Niger and
Algeria - for trafficking drugs, contraband cigarettes and people to
Europe.
But now the traffickers, who also specialize in weapons, fuel,
stolen vehicles and subsidized food, are as well-armed as the security
forces tasked with catching them.
"We have patrol planes, convoys of cars but the area is very big,"
said a senior army source at the base for the south's military governor.
"Sometimes phones don't work well and we need better equipment -
planes, cars, weapons even binoculars."
Adding to the lack of equipment, the militias the state relies on -
especially in the harsh desert terrain its soldiers do not know - are
rife with long-standing grievances.
During his 42-year iron-fisted rule, Gaddafi often played off one
tribe or clan against the other and tensions persist. Last year fighting
between Tibu, oasis farmers by tradition, and Arab militias in Sabha
and Kufra killed more than 150 people.
Skirmishes still erupt over control of smuggling routes, sometimes by the groups supposed to be catching the culprits.
In towns such as Sabha and Obari, a remote outpost 200 kms away,
police struggle to rein in crime, compounded by unemployment, drug abuse
and plentiful weapons.
Military convoys and bases have been attacked. Last month, Sabha
airport was briefly shutdown by angry Tibu protesting against the
disappearance of a militia leader.
The main prison for the southwest is in Sabha but it holds just 95
criminals. It has been attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and
prisoners broke free earlier this year.
"Most of the prisoners came back as they were too afraid to be out
on the streets," Mohammed Ali Azbari, who manages the former rebel
fighters now acting as prison guards, said.
"We now have the army outside the prison."
At Sabha hospital, doctors tell of how patients have been shot
inside the grounds by angry rival tribesmen seeking revenge. Bullet
holes are still visible on the floor.
ISLAMIST THREAT
Restoring order in the south is important to the stability of the
wider region, where Islamist influence is spreading after the defeat of
the insurgents in Mali.
A string of attacks in Niger including on a French-run uranium mine
have shown how rebels have taken advantage of a security vacuum since
the Mali conflict.
Security officials say lawless southern Libya has become the latest
haven for Islamist groups. Paris has put the blame firmly on these
groups for attacking its embassy in Tripoli in April.
Libyan officials insist Islamists have not found shelter in their deserts.
"There are no al Qaeda groups here. We can say that and we know,"
said Mahmoud Abdelkareem, an official from Obari council involved in
security matters for the south. "Our men in the desert would find them
easily and this has not happened."
But Western nations are worried. Earlier this month NATO, which
played a major role in toppling Gaddafi, said it would send experts to
Libya to see how it can improve security.
"We can't deny some activities are going on. The fact that the area
is not properly secured encourages smuggling, perhaps even training
camps," said one Libyan security official from the town of Ghadames, on
the border with Algeria.
Residents in Sabha tell of hearing stories of weapons being sold across the border and areas briefly shutdown by militias.
"There are people who went to fight in Mali and others have come
from there. But they are keeping a low profile, most likely near the
borders," said the first local government official.
"Any cooperation however between a tribal group here and them is likely to be financial rather than ideological."
Gaddafi's overthrow flooded the Sahara with pillaged weapons and ammunition, which Tripoli has failed to clamp down on.
"Libya is an open air arms market; it will remain a source of weaponry for 10 years," an Algerian security analyst said.
Security sources say veteran al Qaeda commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar
acquired arms in southern Libya and his fighters used it as a transit
route before a mass hostage-taking at a gas plant in Algeria in January
in which dozens were killed.
Many fear Libya's oil facilities, also guarded by former rebels, may face a similar threat.
"The situation in the south has worsened dangerously fast," Muftah Bukhalil, head of the intelligence office in Kufra, said.
"You can just about expect anything these days."