Region struggles to find answer to Isis advance

11 August 2015

Special Report Contents

  • Libya is providing a base for militants to target neighbouring states in the Maghreb
  • More than 1,400 Moroccans have travelled to join Isis
  • Tunisia is playing catch-up in terms of developing intelligence-led capabilities to counter the terrorist threat

The rapid expansion of the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis) was made possible by the collapse of state authority in much of those two countries. The planting of Isis’ black flagpole in Libya – ready to penetrate neighbouring Maghreb states – has many of the same characteristics.

Having announced its presence in North Africa with its usual YouTube-streamed brutality last year involving the slaughter of dozens of African Christians, Isis has consolidated territory in Sirte, the hometown of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, as well as areas in the eastern city of Derna.

Isis pinpointed Libya as fertile ground for expansion due to the weakness of the state after the fall of the Gaddafi regime, says Mohamed Eljarh, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

Rise of militias

“Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime no professional forces were formed or trained, and the police/army were sidelined by some political groups, particularly political [Islamist] ones, to give way to their own ideologically aligned militias in a bid to control the security and defence sector in fear of a repeat of the Egyptian scenario in Libya,” he says.

Isis is wasting no time and is using this [opportunity] to expand even further; they are planning for the future

Mohamed Eljarh, Rafik Hariri Centre

Libyan society is now polarised, with some supporting the Islamists and their armed militias especially in Misrata and parts of western Libya, while others support General Khalifa Haftar’s bid to counter the rise of the Islamists.

The lack of capable state institutions and the armed power struggle created the perfect environment for Isis to grow in Libya, says Eljarh – helped by the international community’s failure to formulate a strategy to deal with the rise of extremism and terror groups in the country.

Isis strategy

“The international community is waiting for a government of national accord to be formed in order to provide technical and possible military assistance to the authorities to counter the rise of Isis in Libya,” says Eljarh. “However, Isis is wasting no time and is using this time to expand even further, and they are planning for the future.”

In numbers

1,400 Number of Moroccans who have travelled to join Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

38 Number of tourists killed by a terrorist in the Tunisian city of Sousse in late June

Source: MEED

The group’s ambitions do not stop at Libya. The country is providing a base for militants to target neighbouring states. Sabratha, near Mellitah, is alleged to host an Isis base that trained Seifeddine Rezgui, the terrorist who killed 38, mainly British, tourists in the Tunisian resort city of Sousse in late June.

Groups that were formally part of the Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb franchise have pledged formal allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Isis’ leader.

This is a bottom-up approach, says Philip Stack, principal Middle East and North Africa analyst at UK consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. “The only part of the North African littoral that [Isis] seems to have gone out of its way to exploit is Libya. That is because Al-Baghdadi’s approach works best in failed or failing states; he has been markedly unsuccessful in developing an insurgency where there is a functioning state.”

Libya gateway

One Isis ideologue published an article in January explaining why Libya was an essential gateway and the base to penetrate the Maghreb, the Sahel region and Egypt.

Money has been pumped into Libya as combatants moved to the Derna base to organise in the early days of the call to arms. But the jury is out as to whether there is formal organisation or direction over what Isis is doing in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. The reality may be that there are different models and patterns across the region.

Morocco is a functioning state, and there is little to suggest Isis has made any serious inroads into the country.

“The Moroccans have had a good counter-extremism policy running for a number of years,” says Stack. “They have targeted rogue preachers in mosques, and are operating a government training and licencing scheme targeted at imams that has proved effective. They have also formed bilateral relations with countries in the Sahel, where they have exported their model of counteracting the message of untrained imams.”

Isis recruitment

That has not prevented large numbers of jihadists leaving to fight on Isis’ behalf in Iraq and Syria. Officially, more than 1,400 Moroccans have travelled to join the group.

Rabat has stepped up security operations, with arrests and interdiction of Moroccans on the main transit routes through Turkey into Syria. The revised counter-insurgency operation, introduced in November 2014, saw a stepped-up military presence at key sites such as airports and souqs. The combined efforts may be having a beneficial effect. The Moroccan-based Northern Observatory of Human Rights has highlighted a decline in recruitment in the country.

[The Tunisian government] has not previously faced an insurgent problem like in Algeria

Philip Stack, Verisk Maplecroft

Tunisia, by contrast, is reckoned to have the highest number of Isis combatants per head of population of any country in the region. The country has been a clear target of Isis, as the Sousse beach and Bardo museum massacres this year demonstrate.

Efforts to combat the threat have forced their way to the top of the policy agenda. One approach has been to promise to build a security wall across a large stretch of the porous Libya-Tunisia border. The 168-kilometre sand wall would only cover one-third of the entire border, but would be accompanied a trench and electronic checkpoints. Tunisia’s Prime Minister Habib Essid has warned publicly that Libya has become “the biggest dilemma” affecting Tunisia.

Catching up

Tunisia is playing catch-up in terms of developing intelligence-led capabilities to counter the terrorist threat. “Their security services were geared to the protection of the regime under former president [Zine el-Abidine] Ben Ali,” says Stack. “They have not previously faced an insurgent problem like in Algeria.”   

There has been an uptick in investment in military and security forces, including buying several US-made helicopters. This will help to provide protection in the mountainous border areas near Algeria, which has provided a base for Ansar al-Sharia terrorists.

The security wall may be a sensible short-term measure, given that tribes operating along both sides of the border have been smuggling there for years, and it serves as an easy conduit route for arms and people to move across. Securing the border may be an obvious thing to do in the circumstances, given that Libya is the main source of the region’s security problems.

Tackling Libya

But the most effective way of quelling the Isis advance in North Africa would be to prevent Libya from serving as the font of regional extremism.

Isis understands the strategic importance of Libya, its proximity to Europe and, most importantly, to Egypt and Algeria, as well as the Sahel region. “Isis is seeking to make its presence felt in this region and will continue with its propaganda and expansion campaign by targeting the various countries in the region including the EU in order to get more recruits and place itself as ‘the only force fighting the aggression of dictatorship, tyranny and the western powers’,” says Eljarh.

The country’s internal divisions have prevented it from making much headway against Isis. While the internationally recognised government in Tobruk and its forces have been battling against Isis for more than a year now, the Tripoli administration on the other hand has until recently denied the existence of Isis altogether.

“Even when Isis claimed the attack on the Corinthia hotel in Tripoli last year, the Tripoli administration claimed this was the doing of the Tobruk administration and General Haftar’s sleeper cells,” says Eljarh. “It was only when Isis started to target the city of Misrata with car bombs and suicide attacks that the Tripoli administration backed by Misrata acknowledged the presence of Isis and claimed to be battling Isis.”

On the defensive

However, there is no real war going on between forces loyal to Tripoli and Misrata against Isis. The only clashes took place in Sirte, after which Misrata’s forces withdrew. Now Misrata is mainly on the defensive against Isis, while Isis militants roam the central region and areas around Misrata free without any restriction on their movement.

On the other hand, forces loyal to the Tobruk administration have fought back against Isis targets in Benghazi and Derna, and are said to be controlling many of the routes that could be used by the militants to smuggle weapons, fighters and supplies, hence restricting their ability to move.

This may not be enough. The lack of a coherent strategy to counter the rise of Isis makes it more difficult to combat an enemy that seems to have more clarity about what it wants to achieve and has its strategy and agenda figured out – unlike the Libyan rival administrations that are embroiled in a struggle over power and resources, says Eljarh.

In order to tackle Isis, Libya will need to establish good intelligence, trained counter-terrorism forces, and also a professional and disciplined army and police force.

It will also need strong international support if its fight against Isis is to stand a chance of success.  On that front, the outlook is still unclear.

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