The former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi was no saint, but he served an important function in North Africa: keeping a lid on Islamic extremism. As a pan-Arabist and Nasserite, Qaddafi was wary of, and quickly muzzled any Islamist groups that mixed religion with politics. He also kept many of the neighboring economies afloat by direct investments and employment in Libya’s oil fields. After a NATO-backed revolt in 2011 upended Qaddafi and later took his life, the Sahel region he effectively policed has slid into militant chaos.
In November, terrorists connected to Al-Qaeda stormed an upscale Malian hotel and left 21 people dead. Earlier this month, the Islamic State (IS)-allied Boko Haram group bombed two marketplaces in Nigeria with over 50 fatalities. The US’s missionary zeal to impose democracy on tribal societies has again backfired, a story replayed across the Middle East after the so-called “Arab spring” of 2011.
Qaddafi was the
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A few months later, Tunisian authorities revealed that terrorists trained in Libya carried out the Sousse and Bardo Museum attacks that killed over 50 civilians. Still, runaway success eludes IS in Libya. Local militias kicked the group out of Derna, an eastern city, in June and it is, at present, only able to conduct hit-and-run attacks on oil fields.
The reason is “there is a superabundance of armed groups” in Libya, who, “for the most part, are busy fighting each other, but could potentially be harnessed to eliminate Islamic State," claims Geoff Porter from West Point's Combating Terrorism Center. His assessment ties into US President Barack Obama’s policy on combating IS. "If you do not have local populations that are committed to pushing back against ideological extremes, then they resurface," Obama stressed at the recent G20 meeting in
Libya is a country east of Egypt with just over 6,000,000 people. Libya’s first ruler was King Idris I, he was elected after World War II when the people were looking for a new leader. He was Libya's only King. He established embassies with many large countries such as the U.S. and also allowed U.S. military to come in to restore and maintain the rights of the Libyan people in his first decade as a king. After King Idris I died in 1969, Libya fell apart. A new ruler, Gaddafi, began destroying Libya and its government. In 1972 tensions increased so much between the American and Libyan governments the American ambassador was removed from the embassy in Tripoli. In 1979 all American embassy workers were removed after an attack. In 2011 the people
U.S. diplomatic ties with Libya were fated to fall apart ever since 1969, when Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi “overthrew the unpopular pro-Western monarchy of King Idris.” Less than one year in 1970, after assuming power in Libya, Qaddafi started to put Libya onto a path of independence from Western aid and control by putting the country’s resources “under state control and alliances forged with nearby Arab nations.” It was during this year that Qaddafi also “expelled US oil firms that had invested in the country and banned US military vessels from Libyan waters. The US responded in kind by “freezing Libyan assets in US banks” and by getting the UN Security Council nations to impose economic sanctions and trade embargos on Libya for its involvement in a 1991 terrorist attack on a passenger jet over Scotland, leaving
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States, including its allies, waged brutal campaigns directed at the Al Qaeda leadership and, the Taliban in the Middle East. America’s fight against terrorism nonetheless consumed billions of dollars since the 9/11 attacks. Earlier, countries such as England, Spain, Italy, and Russia, similarly waged wars against the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the Red Brigades and the Chechnya separatists. In most of these cases, research shed light on the mechanisms that led to the demise or the defeat of these terrorist groups. However, when it comes to similar groups located in the southern hemispheric countries such as Nigeria, the mechanisms leading to the group
Bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, and completely enclosed by the Sahara Desert, Libya is a low-populated country that was once was a part of the Roman province of New Africa. While the sum region is close up to 680,000 square miles, the population is close to merely 5.6 million, appearing in a low community frequency of 9.4 persons every square mile. Libya has a Parliamentary Government. A parliamentary democracy is a democratic form of government in which the party with the greatest representation in the parliament (legislature) forms the government. So instead of having the separation of powers like we do here in the United States, Libya’s government has its powers placed in one main section.
Almost three years after he died, the United States and Pakistan have officially announced the death of Mullah Mohamed Omar, Taliban leader and arch-terrorist. The Afghan government announced that it holds credible information that in April 2013, Omar died in Pakistan. The US State Department also confirmed the news, but did not give
In 1969, Qaddafi led a successful, bloodless coup against the king. Qaddafi’s reign included a stronger integration of Sharia into Libyan law, different styles of administering a government ranging from a cultural revolution with popular committees to revolutionary committees to a volunteer paramilitary group (442-5).
Over the past three months, Libya has witnessed unparalleled change. The civil unrest in the country was sparked in late 2010 when a young Tunisian man by the name of Mohamed Bouazizi, lit himself on fire out of frustration of the corruption and exploitation in the country. This act was motivated by an underlying exasperation for the political, social and economic depravity throughout the Middle East and North
Firstly, he had abandoned the post 1951 Libyan constitution and put his own laws in place in 1970. This kept him and whom he trusted in places of power, even after he left his governmental position. So, although some Libyans had the illusion of freedom while ‘electing’, he had complete power.
They located him to Brussels by using a cell phone that was found in a garbage can that had a suicide vest inside in the suburbs of Paris. Including even more suicide bombers that were associated with the attacks. They restrained 21 different people in several locations throughout the city. These raids were performed mostly on Sunday and Monday. Multiple individuals were arrested in these raids.
To help mitigate the manpower losses, IS has turned to conscription in some areas. Iraqi expert Hisham al-Hashimi believes only 30% of the group 's fighters are "ideologues", with the remainder joining out of fear or coercion. A significant number of IS fighters are neither Iraqi nor Syrian. In October 2015, National Counterterrorism Center Director Nicholas Rasmussen told Congress that the group had attracted more than 28,000 foreign fighters. They included at least 5,000 Westerners, approximately 250 of them Americans, he said. Studies by the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence (ICSR) and the New York-based Soufan Group suggest that while about a quarter of the foreign fighters are from the West, the majority are from nearby Arab countries, such as Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Morocco” ("What Is 'Islamic State '?"). By late 2014, cells of militants claiming to be affiliates or direct extensions of ISIL had emerged in a number of conflict zones in Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Existing insurgent groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and some elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan also pledged their allegiance to ISIL. Outside of Iraq and Syria, ISIL-affiliated groups appeared to be most strongly established in North Africa. In Libya—fragmented by factional conflict after the deposal of Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011—ISIL claimed
The carnage at Sousse exposed the Tunisian authorities’ inability to tackle on their own the country’s growing security challenges. Tunisia’s successful transition to democracy, the legitimacy of its government and the bravery of its armed forces are not enough to save it. Nor should anyone in Europe and the West comfort themselves with the idea that the jihadist movement will eventually self-destruct.
The West African country of Mali has from time to time been mired in un-ending overlapping humanitarian, political, economic, and security crises. Notably, the situation in the country became worse when the government was destabilized and later overthrown in a 2012 military coup. Following the coup, insurgents were quick to capitalize on the resulting power vacuum and seize a greater portion of this country’s vast sparsely populated north. As of 2013, a number of loosely connected extremist groups including Al Qaeda were in full control of most towns in the northern region. It is estimated that the region that has from time to time fallen under their control is as large as Texas. In as much as the number of insurgent combatants (mainly Islamic) seems to be relatively small, they are now notorious, and have become more entrenched. The seriousness of their entrenchment is boosted by the fact that they have gone as far as ousting a separatist group of ethnic Tuaregs that had initially been very influential, even in recruiting members among locals. Meanwhile, the nominally civilian-dominated government (based in the capital Bamako) formed in the post-coup period continues to be weakened gradually by continuous internal wrangles and military interference. In addition, years of mega corruption and mismanagement seem to have stagnated progress in many state
In this fight of us vs. them, the U.S. has tried to position itself as a democratic force for modernity, further reinforcing Islamic fundamentalists’ fear of secular humanistic modernism as a western import being imposed by force. An embrace of fundamentalism therefore became a source of empowerment and pride—a desire to return to a more sovereign and traditional tribal past. The same Gallup poll showed that while most of those surveyed condemned the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the resulting American campaign in Afghanistan was seen as an unjustified and arrogant aggression. The rising tide of public disillusionment with the West, and the modernity is chooses to represent, has created fertile ground for Islamic extremists to reap the benefits.
Extremism is a rotten apple that has affected the condition of our societies. From developed countries to developing countries, individuals with bad intentions have succeeded in their attempt to marginalized religious minorities. In Europe, the Muslim minorities are victims of attacks from extreme-right groups who diabolized them for electoral purposes. Also, the rise of extremism is a reality in Africa, Asia or the Middle East. In Africa, as it occurs in the Nigeria, people motivated by vile religious leaders have come to confront people of different faith in an escalation of
Within the context of the Arab Spring, the case of Libya is original because of two following reasons: (1) the struggle for power between citizens and the elite group , and (2) more importantly, Libya was the first country that the United Nations had enforced the law of intervention, spearheaded by the U.S. and their allies. The revolution in Libya considerably awoke the attention of international community, particularly that of great powers. The military intervention into Libya is said to use “ all necessary measures" to stop bloodthirsty attacks of Gaddafi and protect civilians. They had limited successes in terms of putting an end to Gaddafi’s government. However, the UN intervention in Libya has raised an amount of controversy . This essay tends to examine main reasons of the interference of the U.S and its allies into Libya and explicate the main successes and failures of this mission.