Posts Tagged ‘Libya Herald’
THE ISLAMIC CALIPHATE OF DERNA –OR HOW TO CREATE A LITTLE HELL ON EARTH
In the Italian newspaper Republica, Bernardino Leon, the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, has warned that Isis jihadists are already present in the country and awaiting their opportunity. He is quoted as saying; “If a real political dialogue does not start in Libya soon, there is only one thing that will be certain: the country will be an open field for Isis”.
East Libya’s Jebel Akhdar is a potential paradise on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. It has provided the rich pastures which sustained the aristocratic tribes of Libya and before them the five ancient Greek cities of Libya Pentapolis. The Greek cities were supported by a flourishing agriculture and a fruitful horticulture. The Greek colony was taken over by the Romans and given by Mark Anthony to Cleopatra the Great as a wedding present. The Byzantines ruled it a while but it became the homeland of the nine Saadi tribes of Arab descent from 1050 onwards interrupted only in 1938 by an influx of Italian colonist who were planted in the best agricultural land in the Jebel, pushing out the Arab tribes and earning the enmity of most Libyans ever since. The Italian colonists were evicted after the British and Commonwealth 8th Army destroyed Mussolini’s Italian empire in 1943. The Italians expanded the small port of Derna situated on coast and surrounded by the lush highlands of the Jebel to promote trade between its Italian colonists in the Jebel and nearby Crete and Cyprus. Gaddafi neglected Derna and it became a hot bed of Islamist opposition to his regime. It sent a number of Islamist recruits to fight the Russians in Afghanistan and later to support Al Qaeda in its confrontation with the USA. Its geographical isolation restrained its prosperity but protected it from invasion. Nowadays its most notable export is militant Islam.
Today, barring an unforeseen accident, Derna is the lair an Islamist warlord called Sufian Ben Qumu. Ben Qumu’s ‘private’ militia amalgamated with two other radical Islamist armed groups, the Army of the Islamic State of Libya and the Derna branch of Ansar Sharia, to form the Shoura Council of Islamic Youth. There are strong elements within this amalgamated group which have ties to Al Qaida. The Shoura Council of Islamic Youth has gained a reputation for violence and militancy. It has carried out at least two public executions in the Deana which have been condemned by Amnesty International. This from the Libya Herald dated 20th August 2014; ‘The Shura Council of Islamic Youth in Derna has killed an Egyptian man it accused of murder in what is reportedly the second public execution carried out by the group in the town…….[A resident] said the execution took place at a football ground in western Derna. He added that the execution began at around 5 pm, just after Asr prayers. The execution was the second such public killing in Derna. On 27 July, Islamic Youth put to death two men, one Egyptian and another Libyan, for an alleged murder. This most recent killing has received wide-spread attention after a video of the proceedings was uploaded to the internet. The veracity of the video has been confirmed and shows one man, apparently Ahmed, killed by a single gunshot to the head. He is surrounded by around 40 members of the Islamic Youth most of whom carry Kalashnikov rifles and wear face masks and military fatigues of one kind or another. One member holds the black flag of Al-Qaeda at the centre of proceedings. There are a large number of spectators present in the stands at the football ground but they cannot be seen in the video. The execution is met with the sounds of chanting and applause.’
However, there is another very powerful Islamist militia in Derna. It is the Abu Saleem Martyrs’ Brigade which is said to hold the balance of power in the town. There have been turf wars between the Abu Saleem Martyr’s and ‘Islamic Youth’. Here is part of a report carried in the Libya herald on 23rd September 2014; ‘At least six members of rival Derna Islamist brigades were killed in fighting on Sunday as tensions flared between the town’s Abu Saleem Martyrs’ Brigade and the Islamic Youth in Derna. The town today appears to have returned to what has become normality there for more than a year. Over the past twelve months, its radical Islamist brigades have effectively closed the local council, taken control of the court building and liquidated whatever remnants of the town’s security forces remained. Four members of Abu Saleem Martyrs’ brigade, one Islamic Youth in Derna militiaman along with a civilian perished in the clashes which began on Sunday evening and continued into the early hours of yesterday the morning, Bowabat Al-Wasat reported.’
There have been reports of an Al Qaeda training camp in Derna for some time. Intelligence from Sebha in Libya’s south suggest that there is a constant flow of recruits from the Sahara and Sahel countries passing through on their way to Derna for training and on their way back to stiffen Al Qaeda units in their own countries. On 27th September 2014 this appeared in the British Daily Telegraph; ‘A former UK resident once arrested and detained but then freed by the British authorities has been identified by the US government as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, The Telegraph can disclose. Abd al-Baset Azzouz, a father-of-four from Manchester, was able to leave Britain to join a terrorist network run by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor as leader of al-Qaeda. Last week, Azzouz was named officially by the US State Department as one of just ten “Specially Designated Global Terrorists”. Azzouz, 48, an expert bomb-maker, is now accused of running an al-Qaeda network in eastern Libya…… Azzouz allegedly runs a training camp in Darnah in eastern Libya.’
It is hard to see how the ordinary residents of Derna will benefit from this manifestation of extreme Islamism.
Update 7th October 2014
Some reports are suggesting that the Shoura Council of Islamic Youth in Derna has declared its allegiance to the Islamic State of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (ISIS).
LIBYA – TRIBES AND TRIBULATIONS
Jamal Adel, in a report in the Libya Herald dated 7th February 2014 writes; ‘A meeting at a Tripoli hotel of elders and tribal leaders from across the country descended into chaos yesterday when remarks by one of them provoked a backlash forcing the delegates to quit for an early lunch.
While the members had gathered in Tripoli to discuss the possibility of a more prominent national role, the meeting was disrupted by raucous heckling when a delegate from the Al-Awageer tribe, the largest tribe in Benghazi, accused his colleagues of various inadequacies.
The attack elicited a strong sense of dissatisfaction among most members and tempers flared to the point that lunch had to be called early. By the time talks resumed at 4:00 it was too late to make any formal decisions.
Beforehand, the head of Tripoli Local Council, Sadat Elbadri, had made opening statements greeting delegates, followed by an announcement of the meeting’s support for the army and police.
The delegate for the south, Abdisslam Ali Khalifa also expressed, at length and without reserve, his gratitude to Zintani and Misratan revolutionaries for restoring peace to Sebha after recent tribal violence.’
It might be interesting to use this excellent report to look briefly at the influence tribes exert in the struggle for power in post Gaddafi Libya. Before embarking on a discussion of the points raised I offer this as a working hypothesis. ‘Whilst 80% or more Libyans now live in towns and cities the influence of its historic Arab tribes is still significant but tends to be divisive.’ Secondly I suggest that the security of Libya and her near neighbours is threatened by the minority rights issues raised by indigenous Tebu, Tuareg and Berber people. Thirdly I argue that the Eastern (Cyrenaican) cites of Benghazi and Derna are the intellectual centres of militant religiosity supported by forces outside Libya and fourthly I would note that Southern Libya, long known as the Fezzan, is now perilously out of control. The consequence of this is that the trans-Saharan routes through the Libyan oasis staging posts and hubs, such as Sebha and Kufra, attract illegal trade in arms, drugs and people. The battle for control of Sebha and Kufra and the illegal trade they attract is largely between the Tebu people and Arab tribes – the Sway in Kufra and the Awlad Suleiman and its allies in Sebha.
The aristocratic Arab tribes of Libya are perceived to have descended from the Beni Hillal and Beni Sulaim, two tribes from the Nejd, now part of Saudi Arabia, which migrated through Egypt into Libya in the 11th Century. Anyone who can successfully claim descent from them is a nobleman or Hurr by birth. These pure Arab Bedouin tribes displaced the indigenous Berbers and settled mainly, though not solely, in Eastern Libya and founded the nine Saadi tribes one of which is the Awaqir. They pressed onwards and some of their descendants can be found in Sothern Libya. The Awlad Sulieman is one such tribe which has its homeland (wattan) in the Fezzan (Southern Libya) and in neighbouring Chad.
BENGHAZI – TRIBES AND JIHADISTS
The delegate from the Awaqir tribe mentioned in Jamal Adel’s report appears to have torpedoed the conference of tribal leaders and elders by expressing his frustration at considerable length. I and my family owe a great deal to one of the leading families of the Awaqir and I can empathise with the delegate’s anger whilst feeling somewhat embarrassed by his efforts. The Awaqir tribe is one of the nine aristocratic Saadi tribes which were influential during the reign of King Idris but stripped of their power by Gaddafi. It holds extensive lands to the south and west of Benghazi. It is a complex and multiethnic tribe, some braches of which were semi nomadic pastoralists and some more sedentary.
When the oil boom began in the 1950s Awaqir tribe members migrated from their homelands into Benghazi to find employment, living at first in makeshift huts on the outskirts. As employment increased the rough huts were improved with corrugated iron and Benghazi’s ‘Tin Towns’ came onto being. Gradually the tin huts were replaced by permanent buildings but tribal and sub-tribal ties were maintained in the new neighbourhoods of Gaddafi’s Benghazi, a city he disliked intensely.
This movement from the traditionally tribal hinterland into the burgeoning cites accelerated as Libya developed a society which derived most of its wealth from oil. Nowadays at least 80% of the population lives in the coastal cities supplied with abundant water from the fossil aquifers below the Libyan Desert and the Sahara via the Great Man Made River.
Benghazi presents us with an interesting case study. The fall of Gaddafi has been followed by a severe breakdown in security in Benghazi and by the rise therein of Jihadist and Salafist militias. Benghazi and Derna, the coastal city to its north east, are said to be the intellectual centres of the fiercely religious Islamist factions with Al Qaeda contacts and deriving much of their support from external sources. It is said that these two cities draw aspiring jihadists from Libya’s neighbours for indoctrination and motivation. It is this militant religiosity, long suppressed by Gaddafi, which is now one of the major wrecking factors in Libya today. Killings and abductions are now commonplace in the Benghazi. It will be recalled that a US ambassador was killed there and the culprits appear to remain above the law. In the present climate of discord in Benghazi no judge would hazard his life to preside over the trail of the ambassador’s killers
No doubt the raucous Awaqir leader described by Jamal Adel was voicing his frustration with the central government which has, so far, been unable to restore order and the rule of law. He may have also harboured some anger because the Awaqir has not been included in the higher reaches of the post Gaddafi government despite intensive lobbying.
MISRATA AND ZINTAN – TWO POWERFUL TRIBES AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN LIBYA.
From Jamal Adel’s piece above we read of Abdisslam Ali Khalifa’s profuse thanks to the revolutionaries (Thuwars) of Zintan and Misrata. This highlights the fact that tribal and clan allegiances are very strong in both cities. Firstly the cities and tribes bear the same name and have developed formidable armed forces which are largely independent of the state. In Misrata, Libya’s third largest city, fierce independence, a mercantile and martial spirit and civic cohesion have long been characteristic. The battle between Gaddafi’s forces and the rebels in Misrata was brutal. The battle hardened Misratan revolutionary militias are relatively well organised and disciplined. They have recently been called into Tripoli to forestall a coup and have been involved in the taming the powerful Warfella tribe, their traditional enemy to the south, which was said to harbour Gaddafi loyalists – and may still do so. The Misratan militias are said to favour the Moslem Brotherhood’s somewhat theocratic Justice and Construction Party in the current Libyan General National Congress (GNC).
The city of Zintan has a long tribal tradition. There are, in fact, two tribes in Zintan, one of which is Arab and the other Berber. Long practice of cooperation in the ‘Shura’ (the council of tribal elders) has assured strong local government and strengthened the Zintani’s. They have acquired large quantities of Gaddafi’s abandoned arms and developed considerable military clout. Gaddafi’s second son, Saif al Islam Gaddafi, remains in prison in Zintan awaiting trial, officially until the rule of law and the judiciary are restored in Libya, but more likely as a ‘hostage of influence’. The Zintani’s also maintain a strong military presence in Tripoli in order to safeguard their influence over the shaky coalition currently struggling to govern Libya. Whilst stable local government exists in Zintan there have been armed clashes with the neighbouring Mashasha tribe over a land rights dispute which has its origins in Gaddafi’s arbitrary redistribution of tribal land. The Zintani militias are said to favour Mahmoud Jibril al Warfelli’s more pragmatic National Forces Alliance in the GNC.
SABHA – TRIBAL AND RACIAL DISCORD
The modern town of Sebha has developed from the three oasis settlements of Jedid, Quatar and Hejer and now houses a population of around 200,000. It is the seat of the Saif al Nasr family, the most prominent and revered leaders of the Awlad Sulieman tribe and its historic allies and clients. The Saif al Nasr family gained heroic status in its wars with their Ottoman Turk overlords in the early 19th century and with the Italian colonists in the early 20th Century.
Gaddafi’s father migrated from Sirte to Sebha to take menial employment with the Saif al Nasr family, something which his son was said to resent. Gaddafi attended secondary school in Sebha and staged his first anti government demonstration as a school boy in the city. He also held a demonstration in the lobby of a hotel owned by the Saif al Nasr family, thus ensuring his expulsion from school. The relationship between Sebha and Gaddafi was ambiguous!
The Saif al Nasr family and the Awlad Suleiman tribe it led were the dominate force in Sebha and in much of the Fezzan throughout the Ottoman Turkish regency (1551 – 1911), the Italian colonial period (1911 – 1943), the short period (1943 – 1951) of French military government after WWII and the Kingdom of Libya (1951 -1969). During the forty or so years of the Gaddafi era the dominance in the Fezzan of the Awlad Suleiman was reversed in favour of his own tribe, the Gaddadfa and that of his closest supporters, the Maqarha tribe. This process has been dubbed ‘tribal inversion’ by Jason Pack and his colleges writing in their book ‘The 2011 Libyan Uprisings and the Struggle for the Post-Qadhafi Future’. This book is essential reading but somewhat expensive.
Apart from a number of so called al Ahali, the name given to long time town dwellers, Sebha offers a home to people from other tribes such as the Gaddadfa, Muammar Gaddafi’s tribe, which is based near Sirte but ranges south towards Sebha. There are also colonies of the Maqarha from the Wadi Shati to the north, the Awlad Abu Seif and the Hasawna tribe who, in the past, were the true nomads of the south and allies of the Awlad Suleiman.
There is one district of Sebha which has been a source of discord for some time. It is the Tauri district which is colonised by some Tuareg and many Tebu. The Tebu people are part of a wider ethnic group called the Teda, desert warriors living in the eastern and central Sahara and, effectively, a black people without nationality. The majority of them can be found in the Tibesti Mountains on the Libyan-Chad border. Their harsh environment, extreme poverty, and remote location make them a very tough people. They have often clashed with the neighboring tribes and with the Tuareg and, like the gypsies in Great Britain, are despised by the dominant communities who see them as petty thieves and liars.
Traditionally, the Teda controlled the caravan trade routes that passed through their territory. They were widely known in the past for plundering and salve trading. Their language is Tebu and their basic social unit is the nuclear family, organized into clans. They live by a combination of pastoralism, farming, subsistence smuggling and date cultivation.
Since the fall of Gaddafi, Tebu militias have come to dominate the South and Libya’s borders with Chad and Niger. They are perceived by the majority of the inhabitants of Sebha to be non Libyans trying to control the city. In particular they now dominate the majority of the trade (legal and illicit) routes between Sebha and the Chad basin. Thus they have a firm grip on the regional arms and drug trade and on people trafficking. The Awlad Suleiman tribesman may still have their own trade routes in this area but perceive the Tebu to be a foreign and ethnically inferior threat to their historic dominance of the region.
There is a great deal of racism in Libya where the white Arab majority dispise black Africans. This may well stem from the trans-Saharan slave trading era which was still active in Benghazi until 1911. There are now thousands of black Africans incarcerated in Libya’s prisons and brutal reprisals were taken by some rebel militia against black Africans who may or may not have been Gaddafi’s mercenaries during the 2011 rebellion.
The Tebu make common cause with the Tuareg and the Berbers of the Jebel Nefusa in efforts to have their rights enshrined in the new Libya constitution currently under consideration.
The Libya Herald report quoted above tells us that Zintani and Misratan Militias were largely responsible for restoring a fragile peace in the Sothern city of Sebha. This from the Libya Herald datelined Tripoli, 12 January 2014 gives us some insight into events there;
‘Fighting eased today in Sebha, but not sufficiently for a newly-arrived team of mediators to begin the process of defusing the conflict between Tebu tribesmen and members of the Awlad Sulieman clan.
According to Ayoub Alzaroug of Sebha local council, 21 people have now died and 45 have been wounded, some of them seriously, in four days of fighting. Alzaroug told the Libya Herald that today the situation was “relatively calm” compared with the past three days.
According to one local resident, Tebu fighters now control some strategic areas within the city and around the airport, as well as occupying several compounds used by the Awlad Sulieman clan .
Members of the Western region mediation committee, which includes representative from Tripoli, Misrata, Zintan and the Jebel Nafusa reached the city this morning, but could not begin their work because of concerns for their safety.’
This and other reports make it clear that the mediators were called in by Ali Zeidan, the Libyan prime minister, to settle a bitter and lethal series of inter-tribal and inter-racial skirmishes which have left many dead and wounded in Sebha. The armed clashes had become so intense that Gaddafist forces drawn, I believe, from the Gaddadfa and Maqarha tribes, took the opportunity to take control of an important air base close to Sebha and spark off Gaddafist hopes of a restoration of the dread regime under the leadership of Gaddafi’s playboy son Al Saadi Gaddafi who, as I write, has arrived in Tripoli having been extradited from Niger.
GADDAFIST ‘ALGAE’ MAKE A FLEETING APPERNCE
The Gaddafist hopes were raised further by a sympathetic uprising of factions of the Warsifana tribe in the immediate neighbourhood of Tripoli. The uprising was quelled by militias who, with typical Libyan irony, refer to the Warsifana tribe as ‘algae’ because of their long allegiance to Gaddafi and his Green Flag.
The Small Arms Survey ‘Dispatch No 3’ dated February tells us of the late dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s support from the tribes of Sothern Libya. Unless the Libya government is able to project civil and military power into the region very soon it will face losing control completely. A key paragraph is quoted here:
‘The Qaddafi era’s legacies weigh heavily on southern Libya, which had been the regime’s main stronghold along with Sirte, Bani Walid, and Tarhuna. The communities in the region were among the main recruitment bases for the regime’s security battalions and intelligence services. Key units were based on particular tribal constituencies:
• The Maghawir Brigade, based in Ubari, was made up exclusively of recruits from Tuareg tribes of Malian and Nigerien origin.
• The Tariq bin Ziyad Brigade, also based in Ubari, was dominated by Qadhadhfa and Awlad Suleiman.
• The Faris Brigade, based in Sabha, was recruited from Qadhadhfa, Warfalla, Awlad Suleiman, and Tubu.
• The Sahban Brigade, based in Gharyan, was led by Maqarha.’
The many facets of this series of armed disputes are not easy to resolve unless we understand that the tribes which were dominant in Libya during the reign of King Idris (1951 – 1969) were superseded by Gaddafi’s own tribe, the Gaddadfa, which was considered to by many to be Marabtin, that is a client tribe and thus inferior. Some call the Gaddadfa an Arabized Berber tribe but I suspect that it may have originated as a faction which broke off from the greater Warfella tribe at some time in the distant past. In any event it is clear that the Awlad Suleiman are attempting to reassert their historic dominance though the suspicion lingers that they are also vying for control of the lucrative illegal trade routes with the Tebu.
TRIPOLI AND THE FALL OF ALI ZEIDAN
We might legitimately ask why Prime Minister Ali Zeidan called upon Zintani and Misratan forces to intervene in this dispute rather than the National Army. There may be two answers to the question. The first is disconcertingly significant. The army Chief of Staff Jadallah Al-Obaidi refuses to take orders from Ali Zeidan. He may also feel that the still ‘embryonic’ National Army is not yet capable of deploying sufficient force 476 road miles to the south and lacks the training to intervene in civil disputes.There are disturbing signs today (10th March 2014) of a rift between the Chief of Staff and the government. Second, the General National Congress has today sacked Ali Zeidan from his post as Prime Minster and replaced him temporarily with Defence Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni, whose reputation for dealing with the troubles in the South is encouraging. We will see.
Readers looking for an in depth analysis of the role of tribes in Libya might find this helpful:
Click to access analysis_172_2013.pdf
John Oakes
11th March 2014
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Update 24th March 2014
There is still unrest in Sebha it seems.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2014/03/24/sebha-airport-still-closed/#axzz2ws5Riwm2
LIBYA – NOTES ON TRIPOLI’S ‘BLACK FRIDAY’- 15TH NOVEMBER 2013
A report from Cairo carried by Asharq Al-Awsat dated 16th November 2013 states—‘At least 40 people have been killed and more than 400 injured in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, after militiamen opened fire on protesters [in the Gharghur district] calling for their disbandment on Friday……The militia blamed for last week’s violence, which allegedly included the use of heavy weapons against unarmed civilian protesters, are based in the city of Misrata. In response to their expulsion from the capital, the Misratan governing council announced the suspension of the membership of the city’s representatives at the GNC, as well as members of the government. It also announced the withdrawal of all “revolutionaries” from Tripoli within 72 hours’.
Later the casualty figures were revised. It is believed that 47 people were killed and 508 injured. Sixty of the injured have been sent abroad for treatment. Other casualties are receiving treatment at private and public medical centers, 20 of whom are in very critical conditions and cannot be moved.
Ashraq Al-Awsat, in a report date Sunday 17th November 2013 stated – Residents of the Libyan capital launched a general strike Sunday over a militia violence that killed nearly 50 people this weekend.
The streets of Tripoli were deserted as the vast majority of the city’s businesses and schools were closed. Bakeries, pharmacies, hospitals and gas stations remained open. Sadat Al-Badri, who is head of Tripoli’s city council, said the strike is to last three days.
Armed residents set up checkpoints throughout the city to protect their neighborhoods, fearing renewed violence.
Libya’s state news agency LANA also said Sunday the Misrata militia accused of being responsible for Friday’s killing of 43 people at a protest abandoned its headquarters in the southern Tripoli neighborhood of Gharghur.
Late Saturday, a government-affiliated militia, the Libya Shield-Central Command, said it was in control of Gharghur. In a statement read on Libya’s private Al-Ahrar television channel, the militia declared it a military zone and vowed to turn it over to the government. The majority of Libya Shield’s militiamen also hail from Misrata
(It is worth noting here that at the end of June 2013 the General National Council passed Law 27 which states that ‘armed groups’ must leave Tripoli by the end of 2013. The law was passed because of constant armed clashes between rival militias.)
News of the terrible events in Tripoli on ‘Black Friday’ 15h November 2013 was carried on BBC TV. It is hard for those who do not live in Libya to understand the difficulties arising from the fall of the Gaddafi regime which bedevil ordinary Libyans. The major problem is the 1,700 or so militias which occupy the cities and towns throughout Libya in the absence of an effective police force or army. In this regard I wrote the following on 13th August 2013 and it may prove useful here:
“SOME NOTES ON THE ‘LIBYA SHIELD’ AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE LIBYAN NATIONAL ARMY
The 17th February Revolution which finally toppled Gaddafi from power started as an escalating street protest in Libya’s second city Benghazi. Gradually various street fighting groups acquired weapons and leadership and gelled into revolutionary brigades. In Benghazi some of the leadership was supplied by Islamists long suppressed by Gaddafi. A similar pattern emerged in the other centers where fighting was at its most intense, namely Zintan and Misrata., though in these last two Islamist influence was not as strong.
The fighting brigades managed to gain control over the large quantities of arms which Gaddafi had accumulated over the years. These included an especially large number of tanks which they learned to operate effectively. Thus the majority of weaponry is in their hands. To date the revolutionary brigades have not disbanded nor have they relinquished their weaponry despite a number of arms amnesties.
The brigades do not see themselves as militias but as Revolutionary Brigades of Thwars. Between them they control 80 percent of the battle hardened troops in Libya and around 80 percent of the weaponry. As do the British Army regiments, they have developed strong loyalties to their leadership and there peer-bonding is notably strong despite their varied backgrounds as students, workers, academics and professionals. They resemble the Boer Commandoes in the South African War and follow the ancient Libyan tribal ways in that their decision making processes is consensual.
The majority of Revolutionary Brigades are coordinated by local military councils. However, some brigades have broken from the majority in one way or another and operate lawlessly. They remain the main obstacle to peace in the country and are responsible for the majority of human rights violations.
In the aftermath of the revolution a security vacuum developed. Largely as a result a number of ‘Post Revolutionary’ brigades formed. They are often engaged in local violent conflicts.
There are a number of criminal groups which pose as Thwars. There are also extremist groups with Salfaist/Wahabi/Jihadist links which are gaining in importance in the post Gaddafi security vacuum. They are prominent in Benghazi and Derna. They may derive support from external sources but have little popular support.
So far the Revolutionary Brigades have steadfastly refused to amalgamate with the National Army the leadership of which they distrust and do not, by and large, respect. They have, therefore, formed a second Libyan Army called the Libya Shield. The control of the Libya Shield is ceded directly to the Chief of Staff of the Libya Army.
This means that, at the time of writing, the Chief of Staff has to try to lead two separate armies, the National Army and the Libya Shield.The later are still receiving pay from the government for services rendered. The Shield Brigades received a very large sum (900,000Libya Dinars) in back pay recently.”
The presence of Misratan Brigades in Tripoli needs some explanation. In early August this year there was a serious threat of an armed coup. In order to secure the government of Ali Zeidan it was decided to bring a number of militia brigades to aid of the civil powers. It was thus that Colonel Muhamed Musa commanding the Misratan Brigades of the Libyan Shield Force and others entered Tripoli on 11th August to forestall armed attempts to influence the democratic process of the General National Congress. According to the Libya Herald dated 11th August 2013 ‘More than a thousand vehicles belonging to the Libya Shield forces for Central and Western Regions are reported to have arrived in Tripoli over the past four days. The troops have been deployed to various military locations in and around the capital. The move is to defend it from forces causing instability or planning a move to impose their will on Congress and the government by force…………’
The Libyan government has promised a full report on the events of ‘Black Friday’. Some sources are suggesting that the protest was properly authorized but only for the al Aqsa Mosque/Abu Harida square. It appears to have moved from there to the Ghargur district without authorization or police protection. The Misuratans are complaining that some protesters were armed and opened fire on their militiaman. We will see.
JOHN OAKES
26TH NOVEMBER 2013
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Read reports of events in Tripoli in Ashraq Al-Awsat.
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/11/article55322630
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/11/article55322741
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/11/article55322855
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/11/article55323141
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/11/article55322665
LIBYA – A COUP THAT FAILED – HAS THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD SHOT ITSELF IN THE FOOT?
Late in September 2013 rumours began to emerge that members of the Justice and Construction Party (the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Libya) were attempting to gather the necessary 120 votes in the Libyan General National Council to dismiss Prime Minister Ali Zedan from office. It became increasingly clear early in October that their efforts were to be in vain.
On 5th October 2013 the US ‘Delta Force’ captured the Al Qaeda operative Nazih Abdul-Hamed Nabih al-Ruqai’i, whose nom de guerre is Abu Anas al-Libi, as he walked home from Friday prayers in the Nufleen district of Tripoli and smuggled him aboard a US Navy vessel from whence he was transported to the USA to stand trial for terrorist activities. I believe the Nufleen district of Tripoli is under the control of the Zintan militia brigade, the strongest in the city. The Libyan Prime Minister states that he was unaware that the US was to capture al Libi.
Whilst this daring operation allowed the Obama administration to claim some much needed kudos at home it implied that the Zeidan government had lost control of state security and at the same time that it may have been in the ‘pocket’ of the USA. The combined effect will have further diminished the authority of Ali Zeidan’s government in some quarters and given his enemies a propaganda coup.
Early on the 10th October 2013 the Libya Herald carried this startling report: ‘Dr. Zeidan, the Libyan Prime Minister, was abducted by two gunmen from his room in a Tripoli hotel at around 03.30 this morning. It seems that his bodyguard failed to resist being under the impression that the abduction was official.’
Later that day the same paper published this:
‘The Prime Minister was not released by his captors following negotiations with them, according to government spokesman Mohamed Yahya Kaabar: he was rescued after the headquarters in Fornaj of the Counter Crime Agency was stormed. This version of events was confirmed by Haitham Tajouri, the Commander of the First Support Brigade who had been involved in trying to negotiate Ali Zeidan’s freedom. He has said that Ali Zeidan was freed after thuwar from Fornaj and elsewhere in Tripoli had stormed the place where he was held.’
It is clear now that local residents of the Fornaj district joined the two ‘thuwars’, the First Support Brigade and the 106 Brigade, in storming the building in which the Prime Minster was incarcerated. Ali Zeidan was still, it seems, in his night attire when he was rescued. It is also reported that the powerful Zintan Brigade made it clear that they would ‘flatten’ the armed groups involved in the kidnap if the Prime Minister was not released; a not inconsiderable threat.
The Egyptian ‘Ashraq Al-Awsat’ reported:‘The audacious abduction of the Libyan premier by some 150 gunmen on Thursday points to a dangerous state of security instability in the North African country.
Speaking exclusively to Asharq Al-Awsat, head of Tripoli’s Supreme Security Committee, Hashim Bishr, said that a group affiliated with the Operations Room of Libya’s Revolutionaries (ORLR) appeared at the Corinthia Hotel where Zeidan was staying, informing the prime minister’s security guards they had orders from the Public Prosecutor to arrest Zeidan. But Bishr said that Zeidan’s guards “did not see any arrest order.”Tasked with providing security for the Libyan capital, the ORLR “told him [Zeidan] that he was wanted for questioning and he went with them, although his guards wanted to resist.”
The ORLR is a thuwar or militia which is contracted to the Interior Ministry to provide security in Tripoli. It has no training in police or security work. Its militiamen owe their loyalty to their commanders, not to the state. On the morning of the 10th October it stated on its Facebook page that it had been under orders from the Libyan Public Prosecutor when it arrested Ali Zeidan. It later removed this post and began to claim that it had arrested Ali Zeidan on charges of corruption and incompetence and for colluding with the USA in the capture of al Libi.
Sometime later Mohamed Sawan, the leader in the General National Congress of the Justice and Construction Party, told the AP that Ali Zeidan should resign and that Congress was seeking a replacement for him. This sounds like a defensive statement. The armed kidnap and intimidation of the lawful Prime Minster of Libya was focusing international condemnation and his determined refusal to be coerced by force into resigning was strengthening his mandate with the general public.
On 11th October Ali Zeidan delivered a long speech on national TV. He made some key remarks which were rendered into English by journalists from the Libya Herald. I believe the following to be the most significant:
“The GNC is being intimidated by a dangerous loud minority,” said Zeidan, “who stop at nothing to pass their agendas…. Since the day I assumed office a group within the GNC has been doing nothing but work to oust me on no real grounds. This group wants to rule Libya on its own”
“My abduction is a huge crime with so many sides to it, from lying to falsifying government documents and abducting the head of the government”.
“This number of armed men and vehicles would never happen without being pre-organised. This was nothing less than a coup. The armed group claimed to have an arrest warrant and terrorised hotel staff and guests. Armed men forced their way into my room and demanded that I go with them. They stole all my personal belongings, including my clothes”.
He appears to have made it clear that ‘his political opponents had been behind his abduction, intent on forcing him to resign after they had failed to unseat him by forcing a vote of confidence in the GNC’.
He promised to name the members of the GNC who were the instigators of the failed coup. It is not difficult to infer that he was referring to Mohamed Sawan’s Justice and Construction Party, though he may not be in a position to deal with them as a number of his coalition government belong to that party.
For the moment the balance of power has shifted towards Ali Zeidan and it is easy to agree with the notable Egyptian journalist and commentator Abdul Rahman al Rashed who suggests that …‘the responsibility of Zeidan’s government is to abolish and disarm the militias. What happened made him a hero in the eyes of the majority of Libyans, who saw in him a brave figure, refusing to bargain in the face of threats or to be blackmailed.’
JOHN OAKES
15th October 2013
Update 21st October 2013
According to Reuters this morning the Libyan government has accused two members of the General National Congress, Mustafa al-Tariki and Muhammed al-Kilani, of involvement in the kidnap of Ali Zeidan. Both congressmen deny the charges but it as well to remember that they have immunity from arrest. The Libya Herald is carrying a long report giving more details.
Update 28th October 2013
The two GNC members named by Ali Zeidan as the leaders of the kidnap debacle, Mustafa al-Tariki and Mohammed al-Kilani represent Zawia. It seems that the Zawia town council is run by the Muslim Brotherhood and there have been protests in the town by ordinary citizens who wish o register their dissatisfaction with its performance.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/10/26/anti-muslim-brotherhood-protests-in-zawia/#axzz2j0sFK1vp
Anyone interested in the future of Libya should read this interview with the highly respected Mustapha Abdul Jalil, sometime Chairman of the National Transition Council formed on 5th March 2011:
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/10/article55319995
LIBYA – PRIME MINISTER ALI ZEIDAN UNDER SEVERE PRESSURE.
Dr. Ali Zeidan is a decent man and, as he has recently been forced to proclaim, a true Libyan. In the early Gaddafi era he was a Libyan diplomat, working in the embassy in India with Ambassador Mohamed Magarief. Both these men were to defect from the Gaddafi dictatorship and help to form the influential ‘National Front for the Salvation of Libya.’ They were to spend long years in exile, Zeidan in Germany and Magarief in the USA.
Ali Zeidan, as the representative in Europe of the National Transition Council, was said to have been partly instrumental in persuading President Sarkosy to intervene when the 17th February Revolutionaries were threatened with annihilation by Gaddafi’s superior forces in Benghazi.
He has, therefore, good revolutionary credentials. He came to power as Prime Minister on 14th November 2012 with the support in the General National Congress of Mohamed Jebril’s National Force Alliance, amongst others. His administration is opposed by The Moslem Brotherhoods’ Group in the GNC, the Justice and Construction Party (JCP), which has the second-biggest number of seats in Libya’s legislature, and has been growing in influence.
Prime Minister Zedan has much to contend with. Let me examine briefly the case of Benghazi.
As I write (17.05 GMT 23rd August 2013)Al Jazeera is reporting unrest in Benghazi where ‘hundreds took to the streets overnight to Saturday the 17th to denounce the killing of a prominent political activist and critic of the Brotherhood, Abdelsalam al-Mosmary, who was shot dead after leaving a mosque following Friday prayers.
Mosmary was an outspoken opponent of the Brotherhood, whose political wing is the second biggest party in the General National Congress, and regularly appeared on television criticising the presence of armed militias on Libya’s streets. Two military officials were also killed in Benghazi on Friday 16th.’
In Benghazi, Libya’s second city, senior police and military personnel are being summarily executed by persons unknown. Some sources are suggesting that around 50 people have been killed in this way. The British Ambassador’s motorcade was attacked in broad daylight and still unresolved is the killing of US Ambassador Stephens, an event which upset the American people and which left a blemish on the career of Secretary Hillary Clinton.
An attempt by citizens to rid Benghazi of overweening armed militias took place recently with disastrous results. This report dated 9th June 2013 appeared in the Libya Herald: ‘The Chief of Staff, Major-General Yousef Mangoush, has quit. He submitted his resignation to Congress this afternoon (Sunday 9th June 2013) following yesterday’s bloody incident in Benghazi in which 31 people died in clashes between members of the First Brigade of the Libya Shield Forces (Deraa 1) and protesters who were demonstrating outside the brigade’s headquarters, demanding the force be disbanded.’
Benghazi is not alone with its troubles. The eastern town of Derna is a hotbed of Islamist activity. It harbours the largest number of Jihadist training camps in Libya and, it is reported, that here also assassinations of prominent persons who oppose the Muslim Brotherhood are taking place. Again some sources put the number as high as 50. Derna is an isolated town approached by a steep road from the fertile heights of the Jebel Akhdar. It is easily defended and it is likely that the Libyan government has written it off, though it has positioned a large naval craft there on a permanent basis.
Long ago I sometimes stopped in Derna when driving from Benghazi to the port of Tobruk. This latter town surrounds a fine deep water harbour and boasts an oil port of some significance. Reports from Tobruk suggest that it is plagued by arms smugglers trading across the nearby Egyptian border and by illegal migrants attempting to find boats to carry them across the Mediterranean to Malta and Italy.
Recent events in Tripoli have added the alarming prospect of a possible coup. On 13th August 2013 I wrote this; ‘Colonel Muhamed Musa commands the Misratan Brigades of the Libyan Shield Force and others which entered Tripoli on 11th August to forestall armed attempts to influence the democratic process of the General National Congress.
According to the Libya Herald dated 11th August 2013 ‘More than a thousand vehicles belonging to the Libya Shield forces for Central and Western Regions are reported to have arrived in Tripoli over the past four days. The troops have been deployed to various military locations in and around the capital. The move is to defend it from forces causing instability or planning a move to impose their will on Congress and the government by force…………’ The Executive officer of Supreme Revolutionary Council, Muhammed Shaaban, told the Libya Herald….. ‘It was timely to authorise the Libya Shield movement. The threat of a coup was very real and those informed know about its repercussions .’ There has clearly been a threat to undermine the democratic process in Libya.
This event was followed by a further blow to Ali Zeidan’s government. The Interior Minister Mohamed Al-Sheikh resigned on the 18th August, saying that the Prime Minister Ali Zeidan had withdrawn all powers from him and he could not do his job properly. Sheikh has been in his job for just four months. According to Asharq Al Awsat on 20th August he described the government as “weak, incoherent, and dependent on the agendas of political entities and regional powers, and it relies on their feedback and flattery and added: “the cabinet is tantamount to staff that carry out administrative tasks that are issued to them through instructions—without having any authority.
That alone would seem to be enough. However back in the trouble-ridden East Libya there are renewed calls for a return of a Federal Government overseeing the largely autonomous Provincial Governments of the ancient provinces of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and The Fezzan. The call for a federal system received renewed impetus last week.
On Saturday, supporters of this system issued a third declaration proclaiming Cyrenaica a fully autonomous federal region. They declared that Islamic Sharia would be the source of legislation and all legislation that violates the principles of Islamic Sharia would be regarded as null and void. They also called for the recreation of the historic Cyrenaica Defence Force.
The majority of Libya’s oil is found in the old Province of Cyrenaica and this group has threatened to interfere with the production and shipping of major quantities of Libyan oil.
This alone would focus the attention of any government. There are further problems, however. The Southern region of Libya has been declared a Military Zone. This is because there are frequent clashes between Libyan tribes and the Tebu and Tuareg minorities. Trafficking in arms, drugs and people is endemic in this remote and dangerous region which border Darfur, Chad, Niger and Algeria.
The governments of Chad, Niger and Algeria are protesting to the Libyan Government that notorious Al Qaeda Emir Mokhtar Belmokhtar and his gang known as al Mua’qi’oon Biddam, or the Those Who Sign in Blood Brigade, are holed up in the badlands of south-west Libya for whence they were said to have launched the raid on the BP natural gas facility in South West Algeria in January 2103.
In the meantime the minority Tebu, Tuareg and Berber people are restive. They argue that they and their precious languages are not receiving due recognition in the process of drawing up a new constitution. A recent protest by a group representing these several minorities outside the General National Congress turned ugly and some protesters invaded and damaged the building.
To add to the general discord Libya’s oil production is being severely reduced by strikes and armed occupations of refineries and oil port facilities.
So it was not surprising that Dr Ali Zeidan was summoned on 20th August by the General National Congress, together with a number of his Ministers, to defend the performance of his government. Zeidan refused to hand in his resignation, saying that it was up to Congress to withdraw confidence from his government if it wanted to remove him.
We will see.
JOHN OAKES
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Update 24th August 2013
This interesting article in Asharq Al Awsat corroborates some of the assertions I have made in the above post and adds another dimension with regard to US ‘drone’ operations;
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/08/article55313229
And this indicates that there is a crackdown on political activity within the military at last:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/23/abu-sahmain-forbids-outside-allegiances-for-armed-forces/
Update 25th August 2013
The Moslem Brotherhood is beginning to show it’s hand in the GNC through its front, the Justice and Construction Party.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/24/we-do-not-control-gnc-justice-and-construction-party/
Update 29th August 2013
Tunisian PM labels Ansar Sharia a terrorist group which receives money from Libya amongst other sources.
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/08/article55315136
Update 8th September 2013
Dr. Zeidan is facing some difficulties with the Moslem Brotherhood since his recent visit to Egypt. Libya’s Grand Mufti has called for his removal from office.
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/09/article55316103
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/09/07/zeidans-government-must-go-says-grand-mufti/
Update 11th August 2013
Further manoeuvring by the Moslem Brotherhood and calls for Dr. Zeidan to resign:
http://www.aawsat.net/2013/09/article55316432
Update 12th August 2013
The crippling armed occupation of key oil ports and facilities has driven Dr. Zeidan to take drastic action. It is clear from this report that as a true democrat he deplores the use of force to settle the argument but is left with little alternative.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/09/12/arrest-warrants-issued-for-leaders-of-oil-strikes-zeidan/
Update 22nd September 2013
Dr Zeidan appears to have survived the crisis. The expected street demonstrations against his government were a flop.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/09/21/anti-government-demonstrations-flop/#axzz2fGUkctud
Update 10th October 2013
Dr. Zeidan was abducted from his room in a Tripoli hotel at 03.30 this militiamenhttp://www.libyaherald.com/2013/10/10/breaking-news-zeidan-kidnapped/#axzz2hIiJto7Z
BENGHAZI – THE BATTLEGROUND FOR DEMOCRACY IN LIBYA
Late in November 2011, just after Gaddafi’s favourite son, Saif al Islam, had been captured trying to escape Libya and imprisoned in Zintan, I was allowed a four minute TV interview with George Alagaih on the BBC GMT program. As the interview was closing I attempted to persuade Mr Alagaih that Benghazi was likely to be a centre of unrest in future. I had, by this time, taken up my allotted four minutes and the producers instructed Mr. Alagaih to move on. He politely terminated the interview and I bolted from the studio. Since that interview a number of events have shown that there was some truth in my assertion.
The main obstacles to the rule of law in the city are the militias which were first raised to dislodge the Gaddafi regime but which have never been disbanded by a government which lacks a proper army and police force.
In December 2012 I attempted to summarise the reasons in this blog for the alarm I felt for the city in which I had lived and worked for so long as follows:
‘In Benghazi, Libya’s second city, senior police and military personnel are being summarily executed by persons unknown. The British Ambassador’s motorcade was attacked in broad daylight and still unresolved is the killing of US Ambassador Stephens, an event which upset the American people and which left a blemish on the career of Secretary Hillary Clinton. The killing was probably indented to provoke an attack on Libya by the US. The US wisely restrained its more hawkish leaders and acted with commendable, though clearly pained restraint. However, someone in Benghazi is seeking to paralyse the rule of law. There is talk of a Benghazi hit list and fear of retribution has silenced the people.
At last the democratically elected government under Prime Minister Dr Ali Zeidan has commenced to get a grip on events and the new interior minister, Ashour Shuwail, has set out his priorities, at the top of which is his intention to stop the Benghazi killings and find and punish the perpetrators.
Benghazi is a fiercely independent city but its people do not deserve the dreadful events which have marred recent months. They have given much for the future of Libya. The city was cordially hated by Gaddafi who neglected it in favour of his home town of Sirte. Despite (or because of) this it was Benghazi people who first had the courage to defy the Gaddafi regime and risk all to fight for a democratic government, a free press and an end to the repression and fear. Unless the security situation is resolved the wealth which is the right of its citizens will be denied them. Diplomats will avoid the city and normal commerce will be curtailed. Eastern Libya needs investment and its infrastructure is in critical need of repair and restoration.’
On 21st December 2012 I wrote this about a heroic attempt by the ordinary people in Benghazi to rid themselves of oppressive militias:
‘Following the ‘Save Benghazi’ rally on Friday 21st September hundreds of demonstrators arrived at the Salafist ‘Ansar Al-Sharia’ Militia headquarters on Nasr Square demanding the brigade leave immediately. Members of Ansar Al-Sharia who were acting as guards at Al-Jalaa hospital were also removed by protesters.
Around 80 or so protesters also took control of the headquarters of the Rafallah Al-Sahati brigade, located at a farm in Hawari district, some 15 kilometres from Benghazi’s city centre. The Ukba bin Nafi’a Brigade stronghold was also cleared of militiamen. Reports of injuries and probable fatalities during these clashes are yet to be verified. The Libyan police moved in quickly to occupy the bases.
Later, the Libyan National Army’s First Infantry brigade’s commander, Colonel Hamid Buheir has confirmed in Benghazi that the Ansar al Sharia militia has been disbanded. There are clearly militiamen still at large. The colonel was kidnapped by masked men from outside his house on Saturday morning. The Salafist kidnappers accused him of being a Kuffer and threatened his life. His kidnappers received a phone call from someone instructing them not to kill him. He was released by being thrown from a car on to a roundabout. It would be interesting to find out who made the telephone call. Five soldiers from Colonel Buheir’s First Infantry Brigade were found dead. They had been shot through the head with their arms tied behind their backs in the Hawiya district of Benghazi.
There are other significant questions which remain unanswered. How did the group who killed the US ambassador on 11th September know his travel plans? He was on a brief visit to Benghazi and his travel plans were said to be secret as was the location of the safe house in which he was to stay.
The Benghazi militias which are to be brought under formal military control appear to be the Rafallah Al-Sahati brigade, the Sidi Hussein Martyrs brigade, and the Abu Salim brigade. The Ansar Al-Sharia brigade has apparently agreed to disband. The Rafallah Al-Sahati Brigade is to be merged with the 17 February Brigade which has for some time submitted to government control as has the Libya Shield Brigade.’
A second attempt by citizens to rid Benghazi of overweening militias took place recently with disastrous results.This report dated 9th June 2013 appeared in the Libya Herald:
‘The Chief of Staff, Major-General Yousef Mangoush, has quit. He submitted in his resignation to Congress this afternoon (Sunday 9th June 2013) following yesterday’s bloody incident in Benghazi in which 31 people died in clashes between members of the First Brigade of the Libya Shield Forces (Deraa 1) and protestors who were demonstrating outside the brigade’s headquarters, demanding the force be disbanded……….Before resigning Mangoush put out a statement condemning what had happened and announced that the four Shield brigades in Benghazi would become army units.’
Following the dreadful killings the Libyan army’s Special Forces (the Saiqua Brigade) took control of the head quarters of the
First Battalion of the Libya Shield (Deraa 1). This seems to have been followed by armed attacks on military bases by assailants not yet identified. There are indications that a sabotage unit of Gaddfists may have been involved in the attacks. The situation is still confused.
In mid May 2013 Colonel Wanis Abu-Khamadah’s Thunderbolt Brigade shut down the Benghazi arms bazaar operating in the ‘Jinihin’ second hand market in Sidi Hussain. Not before time. Small arms were readily available and costing less and less as the market glutted.
Gaddafi’s appetite for arms was extraordinary and his arms depots have been systematically looted since his downfall. Libyan has become a major source of illegal arms exported eastwards into Egypt and Syria and south-westwards into the Sahel countries and Nigeria.
On 24th May Libyan Special Forces captured a truck attempting to leave Benghazi carrying of SAM – 7 heat seeking ground to air missiles. Gaddafi purchased some 20,000 SAM-7 of which it is estimated 14,000 were used. This leaves an estimated 6,000 still unaccounted for and causing some consternation as they are capable of bringing down civil airliners. There are plenty of customers for these lethal weapons in the Levant and the Sahel.
Update 18th June 2013
The government has to overcome this dreadful security problem. This may signal a start but time will tell
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/06/17/zeidan-promises-more-military-aid-for-benghazi/
Update 21st June 2013
This balanced and well written piece on Benghazi and Eastern Libya and the discussions which follow it are definitely worth reading.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/20132178950966868.html
Update 26th June 2013
Another senior officer killed in Benghazi – and the emergence of a new threat. More later…
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/06/26/another-senior-officer-murdered-in-benghazi/
Update 3rd July 2013
More violence in Benghazi
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/02/benghazi-security-patrol-targeted-by-car-bomb/
Update 5th July 2013
A prominent Federalist military leader shot and wounded in Benghazi:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/04/hamid-al-hassi-injured-in-benghazi-attack-two-companions-die/
Update 6th July 2013
A bomb blast in a shopping street and an attempt on the French Honorary Consuls life:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/05/benghazi-shoppers-may-have-had-lucky-escape/
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/05/french-consul-and-wife-survive-benghazi-gun-attack-unharmed/
Update 9th July 2013
Yet another ex Gaddafi colonel killed in Benghazi, this time with a car bomb.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/08/second-benghazi-booby-trap-car-killing-in-12-days/
Update 22nd July 2013
The killings go on. This time there appears to be a link with Derna:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/22/retired-colonel-assassinated-in-derna/
Update 24th July 2013
A number of police stations in Benghazi have suffered bomb attacks. Some are suggesting the bombings are connected to the difficult question of land ownership. Gaddafi summarily took land from rightful owners and gave it to his supporters. This land ownership problem will bedevil Libya for some time to come.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/24/fourth-bomb-attack-on-benghazi-police-station-three-injured/
Update 27th July 2013
Even more killings. Some are blaming the Moslem Brotherhood and Gaddafi Loyalists.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/27/two-more-assassinations-in-benghazi/
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/26/founder-of-17-february-coalition-assassinated-in-benghazi/
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/27/massive-jailbreak-near-benghazi-1200-convicts-on-the-run/
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/07/2013727185041190637.html
Update 29th July 2013
Two bombs detonated in Benghazi. This is turning very nasty and there does not seem to be a single reason for all the mayhem and carnage.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/28/dual-bombings-in-benghazi-confirmed/
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2013/07/201372961313382581.html
Update 31st July 2013
Another senior army officer killed in Benghazi
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/31/military-commander-killed-by-car-bomb-sons-survive/
Update 2nd August 2013
This piece in the libya Herald records the serious disagreement which has broken out between the Interior Minister and the security services in Benghazi. The latter have accused the former of being clinically dead or otherwise controlled by some force bent on taking over Libya!
Further to all the above there is stunning news that the CIA may have been smuggling arms from Libya to Syrian rebels before Ambassador Stevens was killed. If this is true it is explosive news and may cause a great deal of discord in the US. See this piece in the British Daily Telegraph for further details:
Update 3rd August 2013
Yet another senior army officer killed in Benghazi with a car bomb.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/03/38686/
……..and 900 Special Forces have been sent to Benghazi to try to restore order:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/03/38686/
Update 4th August 2013
Libya’s Second Deputy Prime Minister Awad Barasi resigns, ostensibly because of the government’s failure to quell the violence i Benghazi. There is some speculation that he is playing the long game and intends to challenge Dr. Zedan for ge post of Prime Minister soon. He has connections with the Muslim Brotherhood.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/04/barasi-resigns-as-deputy-pm/
Perhaps the formation of an inner cabinet (see below) will speed up the government response to the awful killings in Benghazi and elsewhere. We will see.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/06/streamlined-cabinet-set-up-to-confront-security-crisis/
Update 7th August 2013
A very interesting development. The US has filed a murder charge against Ahmed Abu Khatala the leader of the Ansar Sharia militia – and believed to lead the Abu Obaida Bin Jarrah militia – for the murder of Ambassador Stevens. Mr. Khatala admits that he was in the US Consulate compound on the night Ambassador Stevens was killed but denies murder.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/07/americans-file-murder-charges-in-chris-stevens-killing/
Update 10th August 2013
This is the best study (by the Human Rights Watch) of the situation in Benghazi to date
http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/08/08/libya-wave-political-assassinations
Update 13th August 2013
Yet another attempted assassination. This time a special forces colonel survives a car bomb attack.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/13/special-forces-colonel-survives-assassination-attempt/
Update 26th August 2013
This suggests that arrests have been made and suspects are being sent to Tripoli:
http://www.libyaherald.com/libya-guide/
Update 27th August 2013
News of more arrests and of hospital A & E departments closing because of violence.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/08/26/three-more-terrorist-suspects-arrested-in-benghazi/
Libya-The Tebu of Kufra, Sebha and Muzuq; A black people in search of a nationality. Updated 30th April 2014
‘A delegation of some 36 Tebu representatives arrived in Tripoli on Tuesday 27th November 2012 to press the new Libyan government and the General National Congress on citizenship and civil rights issues for their people.’ Who are the Tebu and why are they important?
The Libyan region in which the Tebu live is rich in oil and underground water which, via the Great Man Made River, is piped to the coast where an estimated 90 per cent of Libya’s population live. It is also prime territory for illicit trade, with government-subsidised fuel and food smuggled out of the country in return for weapons, drugs, alcohol and migrants. The fall of Gaddafi triggered a minor war for control of the border trade between the black Tebu residents of Kufra, Sebha and Muzuq and the white Arab tribes – the Zawiya, the Awlad Suleiman and the Warfella.
There are visible signs of discrimination against the Tebu. For example, at Kufra a wall built by the Arab Zawiya tribe encircles the small town and traffic funnels through a guarded entrance. The Zawiya are in charge of Kufra’s government, military council, the commercial centre and small airport. The minority Tebu people live in shacks surrounded by rubbish heaps in the ghetto communities of Gadarfai and Shura. They are cordoned off by checkpoints monitored by the Libyan army.
Speaking in Tripoli to the editor of the Libya Herald on 27th November the Tebu military leader, Essa Abdul Majid Mansour, pointed out that fighting in Kufra between the majority Sway [al Zawiya] tribesman and minority Tebu clans had resulted in a number of deaths. He said that relations between the Sway and the Tebu were still tense and there was an urgent need for a government delegation to go to Kufra to achieve some form of settlement, otherwise matters will get worse. “There is already smuggling of weapons to Al-Qaeda groups outside the country, as well as drugs being brought into Libya. A main issue [for the Tebu] is the question of citizenship.”
The problem for the Tebus stemmed from Libya’s 1954 citizenship law when traditionally semi-nomadic tribes lacked identification, denying them access to higher education, skilled jobs, housing and health care. Michel Cousins of the Libya Herald writes ‘Large numbers of Tebus were stripped of their citizenship by Gaddafi in 2009 following a Tebu uprising the previous year, itself the result of persecution by the regime. There were forced evictions and demolition of Tebu homes. Because of it, the Tebu joined last year’s revolution from the very beginning. Officials say that there are some 12,000-15,000 Libyan Tebus. However, Essa Abdul Majid Mansour claims that there are at least 200,000 who are now stateless, having been stripped of their citizenship.’
The Tebu people of Kufra, Sebha and Muzuq are part of a wider ethnic group called the Teda, desert warriors living in the eastern and central Sahara and, effectively, a black people without nationality. The majority of them can be found in the Tibesti Mountains on the Libyan-Chad border. Their harsh environment, extreme poverty, and remote location make them a very tough people. They have often clashed with the neighbouring tribes and with the Tuareg and, like the gypsies in Great Britain, are despised by the dominant communities who see them as petty thieves and liars.
Traditionally, the Teda controlled the caravan trade routes that passed through their territory. They were widely known in the past for plundering and salve trading. Their language is Tebu and their basic social unit is the nuclear family, organized into clans. They live by a combination of pastoralism, farming, substance smuggling and date cultivation.
In Libya the Tebu people of Kufra have long been marginalised. For many years, Gaddafi’s people pursued a program of ‘arabiseation’ which effectively meant the persecution of the Tebu as this report by the Human Rights Council makes clear: “Some 4,000 Toubou [Tebu] people are living in the town of Kufra, an oasis city of 44,000 inhabitants some 2,000 kilometres from Tripoli. In the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [Gaddafi’s Libya], they were treated as foreigners by the authorities. In December 2007, the Libyan Government withdrew citizenship from members of the Toubou group, stating that they were not Libyans but Chadians. Furthermore the local authorities issued decrees barring Toubou from access to education and health care services. The armed movement “Front for the Salvation of the Toubou Libyans” …. opposed these measures. Up to 33 people died in Kufra, during five days of fighting between the official security forces and the Toubou in November 2008. Despite public criticism, the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [continued] to expel Toubou people from their residential areas in Kufra. Since November 2009 dozens of families lost their homes due to forced destruction by bulldozers supervised by state security forces.”
The hostility between the black Tebu people and the white al Zawiya tribe has long been endemic in Kufra and has escalated into open warfare since the heavy hand of the Gadaffi regime was lifted after the 2011 civil war. Traditionally practicing nomadic pastoralism of sheep and camels in a triangular area with its apex at Ajadabia, the Zawiya conquered Kufra, in 1840, subduing the indigenous Tebu. The Zawiya tribe owns most of the date palm groves of the Kufra oases, employing the Tebu tribesmen as labourers. The Zawiya might not be the biggest tribe in Libya, but they are still a considerable force because of the vast size of its homeland. Its members are spread out across the areas around the oil export facilities on the Gulf of Sidra to the interior regions around the oil deposits, as well as the Kufra oasis. The Zawiya are known as a fierce and xenophobic tribe and they intend to control the trade, legal and illegal, that passes through the Kufra oasis complex.
On the 23rd of February 2012, the Jamestown Foundation published its report entitled “The Battle for Kufra Oasis and the On-going War in Libya”. It states, in part: “An escalating tribal conflict in the strategic Kufra Oasis has revealed once more that Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) is incapable of restoring order in a nation where political and tribal violence flares up on a regular basis, fuelled by a wave of weapons liberated from Qaddafi’s armouries. Though this is hardly the first clash between the African Tebu and the Arab Zawiya tribe that took control of the oasis from the Tebu in 1840, it is certainly the first to be fought with heavy weapons such as RPGs and anti-aircraft guns, an innovation that is reflected in the various estimates of heavy casualties in the fighting. Fighting began on February 12 and has continued to the present [22nd February]. Well over 100 people have been killed in less than two weeks; with many hundreds more wounded (Tripoli Post, February 22).”
Essa Abdul Majid Mansour told Michel Cousins; ‘The stability of Libya depends on the stability of the south and the stability of the south depends on the stability of the Tebu. The stability of the Tebu also affects Europe, he added, referring to the need to secure Libya’s southern borders to prevent sub-Saharan migrants using the country as a gateway across the Mediterranean to Europe.’ He may well be right.
JOHN OAKES
For books by John Oakes see… (USA): http://www.amazon.com/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 ….. (UK): http://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Oakes/e/B001K86D3O/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
Update 18th December 2012. There is some hope at last! Read this:
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/12/20121216201619436647.html
Update 19th December 2012
This is part of an article in the Libya Herald which throws an interesting new light on this complex problem:
‘According to immigration officials, an estimated 40,000 non-Libyans, the majority of them Africans, were granted Libyan nationality during last year’s uprising in exchange for their support for the Qaddafi regime. As part of a broader power-struggle, some Arab tribes have exploited this situation, branding the black African Tebu, many of whom supported last year’s revolution, as part of the problem.’
Read the full article:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/12/06/200-inmates-escape-sebha-prison-as-congressmen-from-fezzan-stage-walkout/
and also:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/12/19/libyan-jets-continue-border-sweeps-over-the-south/
Update 8th January 2013
An interesting interview from the Tebu point of view:
http://www.minorityvoices.org/news.php/fr/1145/interviews-with-activists-ahamat-molikini-says-tibu-minority-still-face-oppression-in-post-arab-spri
Update 9th January 2013
Inter-tribal killings continue:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/01/08/new-fatal-clashes-in-kufra/
Update 15th January 2013
An excellent in depth piece about the Tebu and Libya’s south;
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/01/13/deserts-forgotten-worriers/
Update 14th February
News of attempts to reconcile the Zawiya and the Tebu in Kufra. The attachment to the Senussi sect is invoked:
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2013/02/12/feature-02
Update 10 April 2013
Reports of more killing in Kufra despite the cease fire:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/10/fresh-violence-flares-in-kufra/
In contrast this next is an outstanding and sympathetic report about the Tebu and deserve a wider audience.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/04/08/defying-the-odds-the-first-national-tebu-festival-draws-libyans-from-across-the-southern-region-to-murzuk-despite-security-concerns/
Update 29th May 2013
The Tebu’s are now blockading one of Libya’s major oil fields. They have a list of grievances. See the flowing piece in the Libya Herald;
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/05/27/tebus-protest-after-military-leader-vanishes/
Update 21st June 2013
A detailed and well written piece from the Libya Herald on the situation in Sothern Libya where fears that a terrorist group has set up shop are growing;
Update 3rd July 2013
News that Tebu protesters have shut down the ‘Elephant’ oil field west of Muzuk:
http://www.libyaherald.com/2013/07/03/oil-disputes-costing-libya-50-million-a-day-congress-energy-committee-chairman/
Update 20th July 2013
The Tebu, Tuareg and Berber minorities in Libya have protested that they are under-represented on the Congressional Constitution committee and have threatened to take direct action. The Tebu action in the ‘Elephant’ oil field is already affecting Libya’s oil exports.
See this in the Libya Herald:
Update 17th March 2014
The Tebu of Kufra still appear to be threatened by the majority Sway.
http://www.libyaherald.com/2014/02/07/supplies-blocked-from-reaching-tebu-community/#axzz2w7WeDK4K
Update 30th April 2014
These pieces brings the issue of the Tebu and of minority rights in Libya up to date:
LIBYA – KHAMIS GADDAFI IS REPORTED DEAD AGAIN. HOW MANY TIMES CAN HE DIE AND ARE THERE MORE GADDAFI LOYALISTS AT LARGE?
The Libya Herald’s George Grant has been reporting brilliantly from the vicinity of the desert stronghold of the Warfella tribe, Bani Walid, where a number of militia forces from Misurata and others have mounted an attack. The militias have been shelling the hilltop town of 70,000 people for several days. It is likely that 22 people had been killed and 200 wounded in the fighting. The refugee problem is becoming acute. The Bani Walid Crisis Management Centre has claimed that almost 10,000 families have fled the fighting in total.
There are four main reasons for the attack. The Warfella tribe was highly favoured by Muammar Gaddafi and has long been at odds with the Misurata tribe,though both are part of the Berber Hawwara confederacy. Bani Walid was the last town to submit to anti Gadaffi forces during the late civil war (It submitted unwillingly on 17th October 2011). There have been indications that Gaddafists have been hiding in Bani Walid. The Misuratan hero, Omran Shaban, who found the fugitive Colonel Muammar Gadaffi sheltering from a NATO air strike in a storm drain in Sirte on 20th October 2011 has been incarcerated and later killed in Bani Walid without trial. Libya’s congress gave Bani Walid a deadline to hand his killers over. They were unable to do so.
Gaddafi’s youngest son, Khamis, was the ruthless, Russian trained commander of the formidable 32nd (Khamis) Brigade. This was a fanatically loyal, heavily armed, highly mobile and elite force maintained by the Gadaffi family independently of the National Army Command Structure. It was used extensively and unscrupulously in the battle for Misurata. It lost the battle and Khamis Gaddafi was said to have been killed on 29 August 2011 during a NATO airstrike. This was never confirmed.
Rumours have long been circulating that he was still alive and had gone to ground, probably in Bani Walid or possibly in neighbouring Tarhuna where Gaddafist sympathisers may also lurk. The rumours may have been proved correct. On 20th October 2012 it was reported that Khamis Gaddafi was wounded in a fire fight in Bani Walid and captured by Misuratan militiamen. He was, it was announced, being transported to Misurata when he died en route. News that he was dead spread quickly and was received with jubilation in Misurata and Tripoli.
Update 24th Octover 2012 -The fall of Bani Walid to Libyan government troops was announced today, 24th October 2012, along with the capture of a number of Khamis Brigade fighters who had been hiding in the town. A Libyan government spokesman apologised for the premature announcement of Khamis Gaddafi’s death. The Khamis Gaddafi legend lives on it seems.
The striking coincidence is that on 20th October 2011 the dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, was caught by a NATO air strike attempting to leave Sirte and subsequently executed in a summery fashion after being captured by Misuratan militiamen. Whilst his capture and his last living minutes were recorded his execution was not.
There has been plenty of speculation about Muammar Gadaffi’s death. One extreme view is that he was killed by NATO Special Forces to ensure that he would not reveal damaging information to try to save his skin. I suspect that he was shot in anger and in the heat of the moment but there are questions to be answered about how he was spotted and targeted.
As Michel Cousins, the editor of the Libya Herald wrote; ‘Khamis’s death occurred exactly a year after that of his father, the dictator who was captured, then killed, in Sirte. Given the mystery and conspiracy theories that have arisen about Gaddafi’s death, the fact that, like him, Khamis was captured by Misuratan forces and then died will certainly trigger a mass of allegations about his demise.’ Michel Cousins is right. Rumours arouse dangerous emotions. For example, even now Gadaafist sources are suggesting that the Misuratans are preparing to ‘fake’ Khamis Gaddaf’s death.
About 500 protesters broke into the grounds of Libya’s parliament building in Tripoli on Sunday to demand an end to violence in Bani Walid. They were said to be Tripoli residents with roots on Bani Walid. They were prevented from entering the building where the General National Congress was in session.The former Khamis Brigade base to the west of Tripoli was attacked last Saturday. It was later retaken by government forces from the Thunderbolt Battalion. The attackers may have been from the Wirshefana tribe seeking weapons or attempting to divert the armed forces from the attack on Bani Walid. Also on Saturday around 400 protesters stormed the offices of the Al Hurra television station in Benghazi after it announced the arrest of Gaddafi’s spokesman Moussa Ibrahim and the capture and death of Khamis Gaddafi.
Two of Gadaffi’s other sons are still the focus attention. Saif al Islam Gaddafi is incarnated about 85 miles south west of Tripoli in the Berber town of Zintan. The Libyan government has not been able to have him transported to Tripoli and nor is it yet able to bring him to trial. His brother, the ‘play boy’ Saadi Gadaffi, is under nominal house arrest in Niger. He has been seen with a coterie of ex Gaddafist army officers enjoying the high life in Niamey. The government of Niger appears to be reluctant to extradite him to Libya.
The killings in Benghazi of senior military officers and policemen who defected from the Gadaffi regime are still unsolved. Around 15 have been killed so far. Are the killers attempting to purge the army and police force of Gaddafists? There is another hypothesis which gains strength in the light of Khamis Gadaffi’s sojourn in Bani Walid. Are the Benghazi ‘hit list’ killers undercover Gaddafists who are attemting to eliminate those they consider traitors?
Berenice Stories 