Will the West, Egypt intervene in Libya's civil war?
Analysis: If UN intervention is not tied to a consensus ending Libya’s civil war, it could create new allies for ISIL
Almost four years after NATO member states and Arab allies began
launching the airstrikes that helped overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar
Gaddafi, those same powers are again discussing an international
intervention in Libya. But this time the target would be the Islamic
State movement, against which a similar coalition is already fighting in
Syria and Iraq.
In Libya, Gaddafi is gone, but his legacy is very much alive: State
institutions barely exist, while the former dictator’s security
architecture — a collection of loyal militias and a weak army — has
further fragmented, leaving hundreds of armed groups engaged in a new
civil war that has claimed 3,000 lives and brought human rights violations by all sides.
The civil war is reflected in competing governments, one in Tripoli
and the other in Tobruk. Only the latter has international recognition,
although it currently controls less than half of the national territory
and only part of one of the three major cities.
The Tobruk-based coalition includes former officials of Gaddafi’s
state, secularists and federalists; the Tripoli-based “Operation Libya
Dawn” includes militias from the city of Misrata, parts of the Amazigh —
often called Berbers, a term many find offensive — community and
various self-described “Islamist” parties. But these coalitions are fast
fragmenting.
The “Dawn” camp is weakened by divisions over whether to join a
U.N.-sponsored dialogue seeking a political solution, while over in
Tobruk, rebel military leader General Khalifa Heftar is pursuing a slow
motion coup against Prime Minister Abdullah al Thinni. Heftar, who last
year declared “the main enemy is the Muslim Brotherhood” and launched a
war to purge all likeminded groups from Libya, is now demanding
appointment as head of a military council that would effectively
substitute the existing government.
Amid this chaos, armed groups prosper. Some of them are allied with
the Tripoli government: Ansar al Sharia, an organization listed as a
terrorist organization associated with Al-Qaeda by the U.N. and accused
of murdering U.S. ambassador Chris Stephens in Benghazi in 2012, has a
temporary alliance with Operation Libya Dawn in order to fight Heftar.
But Ansar is losing members to the local chapter of the Islamic State in
Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The Libyan branch of ISIL has grown rapidly over the past three
months, having established a significant presence in at least three
major cities beyond its birthplace in Derna: It has bombed several
facilities in Tripoli, controls at least one checkpoint in Benghazi, and
occupied several administrative buildings in Sirte in the heart of the
so-called “oil crescent.”
Three factors explain the rapid rise of ISIL in Libya:
a tradition of Libyans answering the call to arms from abroad, which
became evident when many Libyan fighters joined the anti-Soviet fight in
Afghanistan in the 1980s;
personal ties to the leadership of ISIL among Libyans who have fought
in Syria and then returned to Libya in the past year; and the
combination of a vacuum in state authority and the presence of oil
fields — a favorite ISIL source of revenue.
ISIL in Libya appears to have made a calculated provocation by
murdering 21 Egyptian copts last weekend, which prompted Egyptian
airstrikes in coordination with Hiftar’s small air force on Sunday
night. Egypt’s intervention in the Libyan civil war is not new; the
novelty is that it is now public.
Last August, Egypt was accused by U.S. officials quoted anonymously in
the New York Times of conducting airstrikes on the outskirts of Tripoli
in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates. Cairo has also provided
training to the Tobruk government, and the past weekend’s escalation is
likely to end Egypt’s reticence to supply arms to Tobruk. Libya now presents itself as a matter of domestic security for Egypt.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi wants diplomatic backing, however, and
has asked for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss a new
international intervention in Libya. Italy, the former colonial power,
has offered to take the lead in any U.N.-sanctioned mission in Libya.
But there are two very different models of possible U.N. military
interventions in Libya. One would be a peace-enforcement mission
supporting the U.N.-led dialogue organized by Spanish diplomat
Bernardino Leon. Despite its slow start, this dialogue has recently
gained momentum with support from more pragmatic elements in both Tobruk
and Tripoli. In order to succeed, Leon’s dialogue would need to create a
national unity government capable of taking control of government
institutions in Tripoli. Such a government would provide a credible
interlocutor for outside powers and potentially forge a national
consensus necessary for an effective fight against ISIL. With the right
political makeup, it could also potentially count on some of the most
important armed groups in the country.
Under such a deal, a U.N. peace-enforcing mission would likely be
required to replace politically aligned armed groups at government
buildings and key infrastructure points such as airports, to allow a new
government to function.
Such a scenario may be a goal of the U.N. political dialogue on the
ground, but it’s an ideal-case outcome for which Europeans, anxious over
the rise of ISIL, are unlikely to wait. Recent attacks in Paris and
Copenhagen have a created a greater sense of urgency in Europe, where
governments are more likely to cast intervention in Libya as part of a
wider campaign against ISIL.
The more likely U.N.-mandated intervention, then, will be one focused
on fighting ISIL rather than on ending the civil war. Such an
intervention, which Egypt is requesting,
would be made in response to a request by the Tobruk government, which
would effectively link it with the Libyan civil war. The Tripoli-based
council has already condemned the Egyptian airstrikes and is unlikely to
acquiesce in an intervention requested by the rival cabinet.
Absent a political solution to the civil war, a new Libya intervention
could in fact exacerbate that conflict and even potentially create new
allies for ISIL.
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