With coalition forces concentrating efforts against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the militant group continues to fester in Libya with the government struggling to battle its continued presence.
This week, Western powers aimed to shift that balance.
At the request of Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), the United States carried out a new round of air strikes in Libya, targeting ISIS positions around the port city of Sirte. It was the third U.S. strike on ISIS positions in Libya this year, but U.S. officials said it was the start of a sustained campaign.
"U.S. strikes will continue to target ISIL (ISIS) in Sirte in order to enable the GNA to make a decisive, strategic advance," said Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook.
ISIS militants seized the coastal city of Sirte at the end of last year. It lies in the oil-rich eastern part of the country, where much of Libya’s refineries are concentrated. Libya is among the world’s top oil producers, and control of this area would ensure access to lucrative oil supplies that could potentially be exported from the coast.
Government-aligned forces took back some lost ground this year, however, mitigating an immediate threat to its oil assets. “IS (ISIS) is now further away from the oil terminals of Ras Lanuf and Sidre,” says Fiona Barsoum, MENA associate analyst at Control Risks. “Even though IS may have had ambitions to control oil infrastructure before its retreat, it would likely have struggled to do so with a view to exporting on the black market, given that infrastructure is relatively spread out with different parts controlled by different groups.”
Still, the government is eager to regain full control of the area in an already unstable landscape. Libya descended into political chaos after long-term leader Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in 2011. The country’s current Prime Minister Fayez Seraj has headed a fragile UN-brokered unity government since the end of last year, but has yet to establish full authority across the country, fragmented between rival groups, militia, and tribes.
Fertile territory, say analysts, for ISIS to prosper.
“Libya presents itself as an opportunity. It’s a failed country, rich with oil so you can have resources for self-sufficiency. Also you have some Islamic movements and a conservative society. You have the ideal ground to move in and establish yourself.” Says Riad Kahwaji, CEO and Founder of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA).
Kahwaji says it’s not fully known how many ISIS fighters are on the ground but the country’s strategic location makes it a cause for concern, nonetheless.
“Libya is on the northern coast of Africa. This is within the geographic security zone of Europe,” he says. “The European countries, especially on the southern coast of Europe on the Mediterranean cannot tolerate the presence of a hostile state across the sea that can send terrorists to infiltrate.”
This comes as Europe reels from ISIS-inspired attacks in Belgium, France, and Germany, coupled with Libyan migrants seeping into Italy. A statement obtained by Reuters in April said the European Union may consider moving more personnel into Libya to help stabilize the country, should the GNA request it.
“Though the U.S. airstrikes this week indicate a potential growing appetite on the part of the GNA’s for foreign assistance in the fight against IS (Islamic State), there is likely to be limited appetite on either the GNA’s side or the European side for a larger-scale intervention involving ground troops,” says Barsoum. “That said, a number of countries will be making contingencies for just that kind of action. Italy and France in particular.”
With ISIS’s influence being felt outside the Middle East, the West is eager to fight the militant group’s presence on all fronts, including Libya.
“It is certainly embedded in Libya,” says Jon Alterman, Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “That is disturbing in part because it suggests that the group does not need contiguity to spread, in part because of Libya’s proximity to Europe, and in part because of Libya’s long border with Egypt. It is also disturbing because Libya is struggling for its own stability, and the group’s presence makes that harder.”
At the start of this week’s air campaign against ISIS, Prime Minister Seraj addressed his nation in a televised speech in which he claimed the strikes had caused “severe losses to enemy ranks.” But as Libyan society remains deeply fractured, his biggest challenge may be to unite the country behind his efforts.
