In Libya's Escalating Chaos, an Opening for al-Qaeda?
David Wood
Chief Military Correspondent
Posted:
02/24/11
In yet another bizarre outburst, embattled Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is claiming that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are behind the uprisings across Libya, an absurd assertion given the breadth of the popular demonstrations and the protesters' demand for political freedoms.
But U.S. and international counterterrorism officials aren't laughing. Al-Qaeda already has a foothold in Libya -- albeit a small one -- along with another armed radical Islamist organization. And the growing chaos across Libya could be the perfect medium to trigger an explosive growth of Islamist extremism, some terrorism experts say.
That's a prime factor in the Obama administration's deepening concern that at least parts of Libya could collapse into ungoverned spaces, joining Somalia and Yemen as places where al-Qaeda and its franchises are active and growing, threatening not just surrounding countries but capable of mounting attacks inside the United States as well.
On Thursday, the immediate concern of the Obama administration was the safety of Americans and others caught inside Libya. President Obama conferred with major allies, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, to coordinate a response to the deteriorating situation, the White House said.
"We expect to take action in the near term to -- with the international community -- to . . . compel the Libyan government to stop killing its own people,'' White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday. "We have a situation in Libya that demands quick action.''
Asked whether a U.S. military response was being prepared, Carney said, "there are no options we're taking off the table, but what we're focused on are the options that we can take to affect the situation in the near term.''
Economic sanctions were under discussion, but given that it would be weeks or months before they could take effect, a joint international military response seemed increasingly likely. Gadhafi's security forces have sufficient weapons and ammunition for the foreseeable future, officials said, making an arms embargo irrelevant. And an embargo to halt Libya's oil exports would raise international oil prices even higher.
Beyond the plight of foreigners caught in Libya's growing violence are the longer-term repercussions of intensifying violence as Gadhafi sets his security forces against the civilian uprisings in Tripoli and other cities in western and central Libya. To the east, most cities, including Benghazi and Tobruk, are in the hands of demonstrators and defecting Libyan army units, although sporadic fighting was reported there as well. Bloody fighting continued Thursday in Tripoli.
Given the inability of the Gadhafi regime to regain control, "the likely near-term scenario is protracted conflict between the two sides,'' said Fred Wehrey, a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corp., who returned last week from Libya.
Wehrey said Thursday that an al-Qaeda "franchise" or affiliate called al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) has been particularly active in southwestern Libya, along the border with Algeria and Niger. AQIM has long been active in Algeria.
But according to assessments by the State Department and the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, AQIM has expanded its operations, becoming more aggressive across the region. It has attacked police stations, detonated suicide bombs, and focused on kidnapping Westerners and holding them for ransom or killing its hostages. AQIM sent squads of fighters into combat against U.S. forces in Iraq, and according to European police officials, has recently expanded into Europe, becoming what some U.S. officials characterize as a true regional terrorist organization.
In Libya, Wehrey said AQIM, exploiting tribal animosities, has used local training camps and smuggling routes in southwest Libya. Whether AQIM and other Islamist groups can exploit the growing chaos there and in eastern Libya, he said, "is an open question.''
Gadhafi became a special target of radical Islamist groups after 2003, when he renounced his long practice of supporting and financing terrorist operations. He severed relations with Islamist organizations, turned to the West, and even gave up his nuclear weapons program. Given his close collaboration with President George W. Bush on issues of nuclear weapons and terrorism, Gadhafi clearly became an object of suspicion by groups like al-Qaeda.
The feeling apparently was mutual. Gadhafi's hatred of al-Qaeda rang clear Thursday as he ranted on state television about al-Qaeda being the cause of the uprisings. "It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda,'' he declared, asserting that al-Qaeda was manipulating under-age, drug-crazed youth. "They are taking advantage of the young age of these people because they are not legally liable!'' he shouted.
The rift between Gadhafi and Islamic groups likely led to a merger between AQIM and a home-grown Libyan organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, engineered in 2007 by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior al-Qaeda strategist. The LIFG has conducted a sporadic but violent insurgency against the Gadafi regime, and was the target of several Libyan assaults by air and ground forces against its bases in eastern Libya.
Not everyone shares the concern about al-Qaeda in Libya. "They don't have the numbers to put together some kind of expeditionary corps and send it to Libya,'' said Andrew McGregor, an expert in radical Islamic groups at Aberfoyle International Security in Toronto and an editor of the Jamestown Foundation's Global Terrorism Analysis publications.
The Libyan Islamic Fighting group, he said, was virtually wiped out in a massacre of prisoners inside a Libyan prison in 1996 and only remnants of the organization still exist.
While the repercussions of Libya's popular revolution may be unclear, McGregor said, one thing is obvious and important. In the demonstrations in Libya as in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and elsewhere across the Arab world, what the protesters are demanding is more freedom, more openness, greater opportunity -- not a sharp turn toward a fundamentalist Islamist society. Even if AQIM and others were gathering in the wings to seize power, he said, "None of the protests are being done by people who are calling for radical movements to take over.''
But U.S. and international counterterrorism officials aren't laughing. Al-Qaeda already has a foothold in Libya -- albeit a small one -- along with another armed radical Islamist organization. And the growing chaos across Libya could be the perfect medium to trigger an explosive growth of Islamist extremism, some terrorism experts say.
That's a prime factor in the Obama administration's deepening concern that at least parts of Libya could collapse into ungoverned spaces, joining Somalia and Yemen as places where al-Qaeda and its franchises are active and growing, threatening not just surrounding countries but capable of mounting attacks inside the United States as well.
On Thursday, the immediate concern of the Obama administration was the safety of Americans and others caught inside Libya. President Obama conferred with major allies, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, to coordinate a response to the deteriorating situation, the White House said.
"We expect to take action in the near term to -- with the international community -- to . . . compel the Libyan government to stop killing its own people,'' White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday. "We have a situation in Libya that demands quick action.''
Asked whether a U.S. military response was being prepared, Carney said, "there are no options we're taking off the table, but what we're focused on are the options that we can take to affect the situation in the near term.''
Economic sanctions were under discussion, but given that it would be weeks or months before they could take effect, a joint international military response seemed increasingly likely. Gadhafi's security forces have sufficient weapons and ammunition for the foreseeable future, officials said, making an arms embargo irrelevant. And an embargo to halt Libya's oil exports would raise international oil prices even higher.Beyond the plight of foreigners caught in Libya's growing violence are the longer-term repercussions of intensifying violence as Gadhafi sets his security forces against the civilian uprisings in Tripoli and other cities in western and central Libya. To the east, most cities, including Benghazi and Tobruk, are in the hands of demonstrators and defecting Libyan army units, although sporadic fighting was reported there as well. Bloody fighting continued Thursday in Tripoli.
Given the inability of the Gadhafi regime to regain control, "the likely near-term scenario is protracted conflict between the two sides,'' said Fred Wehrey, a senior policy analyst at the RAND Corp., who returned last week from Libya.
Wehrey said Thursday that an al-Qaeda "franchise" or affiliate called al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) has been particularly active in southwestern Libya, along the border with Algeria and Niger. AQIM has long been active in Algeria.
But according to assessments by the State Department and the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, AQIM has expanded its operations, becoming more aggressive across the region. It has attacked police stations, detonated suicide bombs, and focused on kidnapping Westerners and holding them for ransom or killing its hostages. AQIM sent squads of fighters into combat against U.S. forces in Iraq, and according to European police officials, has recently expanded into Europe, becoming what some U.S. officials characterize as a true regional terrorist organization.
In Libya, Wehrey said AQIM, exploiting tribal animosities, has used local training camps and smuggling routes in southwest Libya. Whether AQIM and other Islamist groups can exploit the growing chaos there and in eastern Libya, he said, "is an open question.''
Gadhafi became a special target of radical Islamist groups after 2003, when he renounced his long practice of supporting and financing terrorist operations. He severed relations with Islamist organizations, turned to the West, and even gave up his nuclear weapons program. Given his close collaboration with President George W. Bush on issues of nuclear weapons and terrorism, Gadhafi clearly became an object of suspicion by groups like al-Qaeda.
The feeling apparently was mutual. Gadhafi's hatred of al-Qaeda rang clear Thursday as he ranted on state television about al-Qaeda being the cause of the uprisings. "It is obvious now that this issue is run by al-Qaeda,'' he declared, asserting that al-Qaeda was manipulating under-age, drug-crazed youth. "They are taking advantage of the young age of these people because they are not legally liable!'' he shouted.
The rift between Gadhafi and Islamic groups likely led to a merger between AQIM and a home-grown Libyan organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, engineered in 2007 by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior al-Qaeda strategist. The LIFG has conducted a sporadic but violent insurgency against the Gadafi regime, and was the target of several Libyan assaults by air and ground forces against its bases in eastern Libya.
Not everyone shares the concern about al-Qaeda in Libya. "They don't have the numbers to put together some kind of expeditionary corps and send it to Libya,'' said Andrew McGregor, an expert in radical Islamic groups at Aberfoyle International Security in Toronto and an editor of the Jamestown Foundation's Global Terrorism Analysis publications.
The Libyan Islamic Fighting group, he said, was virtually wiped out in a massacre of prisoners inside a Libyan prison in 1996 and only remnants of the organization still exist.
While the repercussions of Libya's popular revolution may be unclear, McGregor said, one thing is obvious and important. In the demonstrations in Libya as in Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia and elsewhere across the Arab world, what the protesters are demanding is more freedom, more openness, greater opportunity -- not a sharp turn toward a fundamentalist Islamist society. Even if AQIM and others were gathering in the wings to seize power, he said, "None of the protests are being done by people who are calling for radical movements to take over.''