Libyan government forces have seized full control of the coastal city of Sirte from Islamic State (IS) group forces, Reda Issa, an official spokesman, said on Monday. “Our forces saw Daesh (IS) totally collapsing,” he said. Sirte, on Libya's Mediterranean coast, was the last significant IS-held territory in the country. Forces allied with the country's Government of National Accord (GNA) launched an offensive to retake the city in May, seizing large areas of the city and cornering the militants, but IS later put up fierce resistance with car bombings, snipers and improvised explosive devices. However, despite the successes in Sirte the Libyan capital Tripoli experienced the worst outbreak of fighting between the rival militias that control the city last week since the war waged by the Libya Dawn Coalition to seize control of it in the summer of 2014. This coalition has since dissolved against the backdrop of disputes over the UN-sponsored Libyan Political Accord (LPA) concluded in Skhirat, Morocco, in December last year. And some observers believe that the larger Libyan militias should now assert control over security in the capital in order to eliminate the smaller groups and enable the international community to deal with fewer military actors. More than 40 militia groups of diverse political, ideological and social loyalties have now staked out separate areas of control in various quarters of Tripoli. Many observers had expected clashes between them in the light of the political and security vacuum, the proliferation of heavy weapons in the streets, and the fierce political and ideological differences between them, especially over the UN-sponsored LPA. However, last week's hostilities drove home how volatile the situation now is in the Libyan capital, where the official security agencies are feeble and militia gangs dominate. In the anarchy that has prevailed since the fall of the former Gaddafi regime in 2011, militias have burgeoned and grown increasingly powerful as they have capitalised on the sharp political and institutional rifts in the country. The clashes that erupted on 1 December terrorised the neighbourhoods of Bab bin Ghashir, Abu Salim, Zawya Al-Dahmani and Al-Dhahra in Tripoli. Fighting also took place in the vicinity of the international airport, the Rixos Hotel, once the headquarters of the Libyan General National Congress (GNC), and Ghabat Al-Nasr. It was unclear why the fighting erupted between the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade, the Abu Salim Central Security force and the Rada (Deterrent) Force, on the one hand, and the Ihsan Brigade, the Sumud Brigade, created by former Libya Dawn commander Salah Badi and consisting of National Guard and Sixth Security Division forces that fall under the Libyan ministries of defence and the interior, on the other. The ministries, subordinate to the Libyan Presidency Council, were silent on the issue. The flare-up subsided after city notables and the leaders of a number of other militias intervened and succeeded in convincing the combatants to conclude a ceasefire and withdraw to their respective strongholds. However, the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade issued a statement on its Facebook page on Friday saying that it had taken action against the Ihsan Brigade, based in the Ghabat Al-Nasr neighbourhood, because the later had “harboured suspicious elements from inside and outside Tripoli and is threatening public security”. The implication is that the Ihsan Brigade had been harbouring terrorists and that it is affiliated with the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council which has been fighting the army commanded by Khalifa Haftar in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi since 2014. The Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade statement described its action as “a pre-emptive step and a message to all those who want to toy with the security of the capital.” Some observers have taken this to be an indication that the camp headed by the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade now intends to seize control of the capital and drive out adversaries from the opposing camp. The militia groups in Tripoli fall into two categories. One has been termed the “reconciliatory Salafis” and includes, in addition to the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade, the Rada (Deterrent) Force based at the Mitiga Air Base in eastern Tripoli and the Abu Salim Central Security Force led by Ghaniwa Al-Kakli. The other camp is comprised of the Ihsan Brigade based in Ghabat Al-Nasr and the Sumud Brigade led by Libya Dawn commander Salah Badi which consists of the ministries of defence and interior forces earlier mentioned. This side is more extreme, and most of its leaders were previously affiliated with the now defunct jihadist Islamic Fighting Group. The second camp fears the growing influence of the first, which it perceives as being close to forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi. These fears were heightened when the first camp embarked on a series of arrests of leaders from the jihadist side who had been affiliated with the Islamic Fighting Group. Tensions between the two camps have been mounting since October when one of the members of the first camp acknowledged that individuals from or close to the Rada (Deterrent) Force had been involved in the assassination of sheikh Nader Al-Omrani, an aide to the hardline Grand Mufti of Libya Sadek Al-Ghariani, who is affiliated with leaders from the Islamic Fighting Group and who was abducted from a mosque during dawn prayers in October. As the fighting continued on Thursday and Friday last week, reactions from official quarters were restricted to statements of condemnation and pledges to investigate. The Libyan Presidency Council announced on Friday that it had instructed the Ministry of Interior to take all necessary measures to protect the lives and property of civilians and public facilities in Tripoli and to coordinate with the Ministry of Defence and the Presidential Guards towards this end. The Presidency Council described the armed violence in the capital and other Libyan cities as the product of “many years that have generated a heavy legacy and transgressions and problems at many levels.” It expressed its “extreme sorrow” over the lives that had been lost and appealed to all sides to exercise restraint and to cease terrorising peaceful citizens. The council's statement noted that a security plan had been devised “capable of providing security in the capital” and that the agencies of the interior minister were carrying it out in spite of their meagre resources. It urged people to exercise caution and to remain in contact and to keep up to date on any new instructions. Over the past two years, Tripoli has become an arena of intense competition between militia groups from the city itself and from militia groups affiliated with Misrata 200 km to the east which has now assembled with the largest military forces in the country. While the forces based in Misrata are linked with some of the militias in Tripoli, they have remained aloof from the fray in the capital because of the need to sustain progress in the war against terrorism further to the east. The Misrata forces form the main component of the Bunyan Marsus Operation that was launched by the Presidency Council and the GNA in May to liberate Sirte from IS control. In response to developments in the capital, the Community of Parliamentary Deputies of Misrata, a group of elected representatives to the House of Representatives of the General National Congress, released a statement urging the Presidency Council and the GNA to take the “courageous decisions” necessary to restore security and stability in the country and assert the rule of law over the capital. The statement, a copy of which has been obtained by Al-Ahram Weekly, said that the MPs were “extremely concerned” at “the events taking place in the capital, the violation of the sanctity of civilians and the terrorising of peaceful people by armed militias.” These militia groups, the statement added, were “not restrained by the rule of law and are not subordinate to the authority of the official institutions of the state, even if they claim otherwise.” The statement said that some of the militias in Tripoli were “ideologically indoctrinated and sympathetic with extremist groups and opposed to the course of national accord. It is also certain that these militias have become a real threat to the security and stability of the state and its institutions.” It said that the Libyan people had become the object of “a systematic campaign of starvation and abuse to the point of degradation due to the dangerous deterioration in the financial and economic state of the country and the lack of cash in the banks…The networks of financial corruption, some of which have contributed to feeding the sources of terrorism, now control the resources of the Libyan people and have turned them into objects of bartering and blackmail.” This is the first time in which Misrata officials have intimated that the Libyan Central Bank is in some way linked to some militia groups in Tripoli. The Misrata MPs blamed the Central Bank for the grave deterioration and for being a party to the political conflict “in spite of the fact that the requirements of this establishment demand that it remain aloof to the realm of political polarisation and influence.” The statement called on the Presidency Council, the GNA, the House of Representatives and the State Council to “put an end to the dangerous collapse of the financial and economic situation of the country.” It stressed that Misrata was “not represented by any militia formation or participating in any manner in the armed conflict in Tripoli” and said that “there can be no bargaining or compromise with the security of the capital.”
