Libya: The Next Frontier

Posted: November 18th, 2015

By Haim Malka

Haim Malka is a senior fellow and deputy director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, where he oversees the program's work on the Maghreb. His principal areas of research include religious radicalization, government strategies to combat extremism, violent non-state actors, and North African politics and security.

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, U.S. defense officials announced a rare military strike on a senior Islamic State group (ISG) leader in Libya. Wall-to-wall press coverage of events in Europe made the strike on the Iraqi commander Wissam al-Zubaydi (aka Abu Nabil al Anbari) seem relatively trivial, but underestimating Libya’s strategic importance to the fight against the Islamic State would be a mistake.

Libya is ISG’s most important base outside of the Levant, and it is attracting fighters from throughout North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Pressure on ISG in Syria and Iraq will make Libya even more important to global extremists. Only 100 miles from European shores, Libya is the third node of a triangle connecting ISG in the Levant with the Maghreb, Africa, and Europe.

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