Country is Plagued by ISIS, Violence, & Civil War

(New York, N.Y.)  – This week, U.N. experts released a report detailing the deteriorating security situation in Libya. The report states that Libya is not only targeted as “one of the main axes” of ISIS’s future operations, but that the country will continue to be embroiled in violent attacks due to an increase in the presence of Chadian and Sudanese fighters. The foreign fighters primarily support General Khalifa Haftar’s troops in offensive operations against the Government of National Accord (GNA), the internationally recognized government of Libya.

ISIS was officially established in Libya in November 2014. Since then, the group has become the most powerful ISIS affiliate outside of Syria and Iraq and the most powerful extremist group operating in Libya. Rival governments in Tripoli and Tobruk further complicate Libya’s political landscape and ability to combat extremists. Following a widespread loss for Islamist parties in the 2014 parliamentary elections, Islamist parties established a rival parliament in Tripoli and pushed the internationally recognized Council of Deputies legislature out of the capital to the Libyan city of Tobruk.

The Libyan National Army (LNA), led by General Khalifa Haftar, dominates the country’s eastern region. On April 4, 2019, Haftar ordered the organization to advance on Tripoli, where the GNA is based. Haftar declared war on the country’s U.N.-backed interim leader and hammered the country’s capital with airstrikes.

The assault on Tripoli has threatened to plunge Libya back into full-scale civil war and possibly create an opening for the resurrection of the country’s branch of ISIS.

To read the CEP report, Libya: Extremism & Counter-Extremism, please click here.