BENGHAZI: A series of military victories over extremist Islamic groups along Libya’s Mediterranean coastline has forced hundreds of militants, including Islamic State fighters, to seek refuge in the vast deserts of the North African nation, already home to militias from neighboring countries, cross-border criminal gangs and mercenaries.
Libya’s lawless, desolate center and south provides a sanctuary for militants to reorganize, recruit, train and potentially plot for a comeback. That is especially important at a time when the Daesh group lost not only its urban holdings in Libya but is crumbling in Iraq and Syria.
In Libya’s remote stretches near the borders with Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Algeria, Niger and Tunisia, multiple armed groups already operate freely. Arms are easily available. Human trafficking and cross-border smuggling, especially fuel, are rampant and lucrative.
Lack of effective border controls has allowed militiamen fighting the Sudanese and Chadian governments to set up camp inside Libya. Alongside them came soldiers-for-hire from places as far afield as Cameroon. Tribal and ethnic rivalries frequently boil over into deadly strife.
Militants “travel back and forth near the southern borders and all the way to the central parts of the country, robbing traveling cars and attacking civilians,” said Brig. Gen. Abdullah Nouredeen of the Libyan National Army. “They sometimes work close to the borders since there is money to be made from smuggling and arms trading.”
The migration of the militants comes after rivals drove them out of coastal cities like Sirte, Benghazi, Sebratha and Derna. Their dispersion into the desert undermines prospects for a return of stability in oil-rich Libya.
Claudia Gazzini, the International Crisis Group’s senior Libya analyst, said IS militants were generally lying low in the desert south of the coastline, moving in small convoys so as not to attract attention or just going home. Others, she explained, were active around Sirte, staging occasional attacks against their adversaries.
Going forward, she said, IS remnants will likely try to influence and win over groups opposed to Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the Egyptian-backed commander of Libya’s national army who has been fighting militants.
“We are already seeing signs that this may have already happened,” she said.
Sensing danger, Egypt has begun to closely monitor its borders with Sudan and Libya, fearing the area could turn into a major staging ground for attacks inside its territory. Egypt has said IS militants fighting its security forces in the Sinai Peninsula receive arms and fighters from Libya. It said militants behind recent deadly attacks against Christians were trained in Libya and sneaked into Egypt across the porous desert border.
Like the rest of Libya, the desert towns and villages in the country’s central and southern regions have seen law and order vanish since the 2011 ouster and death of dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Across the country, militias — many of them with Islamist ideologies — have carved out fiefdoms, imposing their will on local administrations.
Some estimates put the number of full-time militiamen in Libya at around 120,000 and IS fighters around 1,000, but there is no way to independently verify these figures.
Gen. Hifter has sought to drive out Islamic militants and bring the center and south under his control — but with limited success. He said he intends to seal off Libya’s borders with Egypt, Sudan and Chad by early July to stop the flow of arms, fighters and migrants.
It is widely believed, however, that his forces don’t have the resources to enforce order in the vast region or take on the hardened militants and militiamen there.
In a sign of desperation over deteriorating security, Libya’s national oil company halted shipments to the south, after a series of hijackings of convoys delivering fuel. Invariably, the fuel surfaced later in the black market or in neighboring countries.
The following are key geographical locations for the militants and armed groups:
ZAMZAM VALLEY:
Zamzam Valley is south of Misrata about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the coast. Scores of IS militants found refuge there after they were defeated last year by militiamen loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli after a months-long battle. IS fighters in Zamzam Valley occasionally launch attacks against Misrata, the hometown of the militia that drove them out of Sirte, as well as kidnap travelers or attacks checkpoints.
AL-AWAYNAT:
This location in the remote southwestern corner of Libya close to the borders of Algeria and Niger has become something of a “mercenaries central” because of the hundreds of guns-for hire stationed there. The men, mostly from Chad, Niger and Cameroon, are hired mostly to fight under the banners of different militias. They make an average of $2,000 a month when hired. Militias and criminal groups in Al-Awaynat, meanwhile, make money from human trafficking, kidnappings for ransom and smuggling of weapons, drugs and fuel.
AL-KUFRA:
Small cells of IS and Al-Qaeda fighters are believed to have moved to the outskirts of this oasis city in southeast Libya in recent months. Al-Kufra has for decades been torn by a deadly conflict pitting the Arab Alzway tribes against the sub-Saharan African Tabu group, which inhabits a large swath of territory stretching across northern Chad, southern Libya, northwestern Sudan and northeastern Niger.
Alzway dominate the city and accuse the Tabu of harboring criminals and militants from Sudan and Chad. The Tabu deny the charges. Militias from both sides are involved in tit-for-tat raids that often target civilians. The conflict is widely seen as a rivalry over control of border crossings and lucrative smuggling routes.
Two brigades from Hifter’s Libyan National Army are stationed at Al-Kufra, but they don’t have the manpower or resources to enforce law and order in the vast desert area.
SABHA:
Most of the hundreds of militants who managed to flee the assault on Sirte last year are thought to have made it near this town in central Libya.
It was a perfect destination. The city is virtually out of control, with several ongoing conflicts. The main players are Awlad Suleiman, an ethnically Arab tribe, and the Tabu and Twareg, all of whom have for years been vying for a bigger slice of the smuggling trade.
Anti-government militiamen from Sudan and Chad provide a pool of mercenaries for any armed group. They are also involved in cross-border arms smuggling, according to local politician Youssef Kalourki.
IS fighters in the area keep a low profile, spending most of their time in valleys and mountains outside the city.
In May, forces loyal to Hifter seized a nearby air base and several localities. It was a significant victory, but Hifter’s forces remain a long way away from controlling the region.
UBARI:
This town southwest of Sabha saw fierce fighting among rival criminal gangs in 2015 that displaced almost the entire population. The hostilities were triggered by an attempt by several militias to control the black market in subsidized fuel provided by the Tripoli government.
Radical militant groups in the area, including Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, are known to be involved in the illicit trade, selling the fuel in neighboring countries for at least 10 times the price in Libya.
Militants find sanctuary in Libya’s wild south
Militants find sanctuary in Libya’s wild south
French anti-terrorism prosecutor to appeal against Lebanese militant’s release
Requests for Abdallah’s release have been rejected and annulled multiple times
PARIS: The office of France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said on Friday it would appeal against a French court’s decision to grant the release of a Lebanese militant jailed for attacks on US and Israeli diplomats in France in the early 1980s.
PNAT said Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade, would be released on Dec. 6 under the court’s decision on condition that he leave France and not return.
Abdallah was given a life sentence in 1987 for his role in the murders of US diplomat Charles Ray in Paris and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in 1982, and in the attempted murder of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.
Representatives for the embassies of the United States and Israel, as well as the Ministry of Justice, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Requests for Abdallah’s release have been rejected and annulled multiple times, including in 2003, 2012 and 2014.
A French student who was arrested and detained in Tunisia returns to Paris
- Victor Dupont, a Ph.D. at Aix-Marseille University’s Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday
- Dupont, who researches social movements, youth unemployment and Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, was one of three French nationals arrested on Oct. 19
PARIS: A French student detained for weeks in Tunisia returned to Paris on Friday after weeks of top-level diplomatic discussions.
Victor Dupont, a 27-year-old completing a Ph.D. at Aix-Marseille University’s Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday afternoon, 27 days after he was arrested in Tunis.
“Obviously, we welcome this outcome for him and, most of all, we welcome that he is able to reunite with his loved ones here in France,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said.
He announced the release at a ministry news briefing on Friday, saying that Dupont was freed Tuesday from prison and returned on Friday back to France.
Dupont, who researches social movements, youth unemployment and Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, was one of three French nationals arrested on Oct. 19. Authorities in recent years have arrested journalists, activists and opposition figures, but Dupont’s arrest garnered international attention and condemnation because of his nationality and because he wasn’t known as a critic of the government.
A support committee set up to advocate for Dupont’s release told The Associated Press in October that Dupont and several friends were detained in front of Dupont’s home, then taken to a police station for questioning. Dupont was later taken alone into custody and taken to appear in military court in the city of Le Kef.
The arrest provoked concerns about the safety and security of foreigners in Tunisia, where rights and freedoms have gradually been curtailed under President Kais Saied.
Dupont’s supporters, both at his university and in associations representing academics who work in the Middle East and North Africa, said that his research didn’t pose any security risks and called the charges unfounded.
In a letter to Saied and Tunisia’s Ministry of Higher Educations, associations representing French, Italian and British academics who work in the region said that Tunisia’s government had approved Dupont’s research and that the allegations against him “lack both founding and credibility.”
“We therefore condemn the extraordinary use of the military court system,” they wrote on Nov. 12.
Saied has harnessed populist anger to win two terms as president of Tunisia and reversed many of the gains that were made when the country became the first to topple a longtime dictator in 2011 during the regional uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring.
Tunisia and France have maintained close political and economic ties since Tunisia became independent after 75 years of being a French protectorate. France is Tunisia’s top trade partner, home to a large Tunisian diaspora and a key interlocutor in managing migration from North Africa to Europe.
A French diplomatic official not authorized to speak publicly about the arrest told The Associated Press in late October that officials were in contact with Tunisian authorities about the case. Another diplomatic official with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron had recently spoken to Saied twice about the case and said that it was the subject of regular calls between top level diplomats.
The others arrested along with Dupont were previously released.
Israeli strikes at Damascus suburb, Syrian state news agency says
- Explosions were reported earlier on Friday in the vicinity of Damascus
- “Israeli aggression targets Mazzeh area in Damascus,” SANA said in a news flash
DUBAI: Israel carried out attacks on the Mazzeh suburb of Damascus on Friday, Syrian state news agency SANA said, a day after a wave of deadly strikes on what Israel said were militant targets in the Syrian capital.
Explosions were reported earlier on Friday in the vicinity of Damascus.
“Israeli aggression targets Mazzeh area in Damascus,” SANA said in a news flash. It gave no other details.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Commanders in Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards based in Syria have been known to reside in Mazzeh, according to residents who fled after recent strikes that killed some key figures in the groups.
Mazzeh’s high-rise blocks have been used by the authorities in the past to house leaders of Palestinian factions including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Fifteen people were killed on Thursday in Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Mazzeh and Qudsaya suburbs, state media reported. Israel said the attacks targeted military sites and the headquarters of Islamic Jihad.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel that sparked the Gaza war.
Separately, the Israeli military said it had attacked on Thursday transit routes on the Syrian-Lebanese border that were used to transfer weapons to Hezbollah.
Syrian state media reported that an Israeli attack completely destroyed a bridge in the area of Qusayr in southwest of Syria’s Homs near the border with northern Lebanon.
A lion cub evacuated from Lebanon to a South African sanctuary escapes airstrikes and abuse
- After spending two months in a small Beirut apartment with an animal rights group, the four-and-half-month-old lion cub arrived Friday at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa
- Sara is the fifth lion cub to be evacuated from Lebanon by local rescue group Animals Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israel began exchanging fire
BEIRUT: When Sara first arrived at her rescuers’ home, she was sick, tired, and was covered in ringworms and signs of abuse all over her little furry body.
After spending two months in a small Beirut apartment with an animal rights group, the four-and-half-month-old lion cub arrived Friday at a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa after a long journey on a yacht and planes, escaping both Israeli airstrikes and abusive owners.
Sara is the fifth lion cub to be evacuated from Lebanon by local rescue group Animals Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israel began exchanging fire a day after the Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel by Hamas that ignited the war in Gaza last year.
Animals Lebanon first discovered Sara on social media channels in July. Her owner, a Lebanese man in the ancient city of Baalbek, posted bombastic videos of himself parading with the little lion cub on TikTok and Instagram.
Under Lebanese law, it is prohibited to own wild and exotic animals.
The lion cub was “really just being used as showing off,” said Jason Mier, executive director of Animals Lebanon.
In mid-September, the group finally retrieved her after filing a case with the police and judiciary, who interrogated her owner and forced him to give up the feline.
Soon after that, Israel launched an offensive against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — after nearly a year of low-level conflict — and Baalbek came under heavy bombardment.
Mier and his team were able to extract Sara from Baalbek weeks before Israel launched its aerial bombardment campaign on the ancient city, and move her to an apartment in Beirut’s busy commercial Hamra district.
She was supposed to fly to South Africa in October, but international airlines stopped flights to Lebanon as Israeli jets and drones hit sites close to the country’s only airport.
Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border into Israel in support of its ally, Hamas, on Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Palestinian militants staged the deadly surprise incursion into southern Israel. Israel responded with shelling and airstrikes. Beginning in mid-September, Israel launched an intense aerial bombardment of much of Lebanon, followed by a ground invasion.
Before the conflict, Animals Lebanon was active in halting animal trafficking and the exotic pet trade, saving over two dozen big cats from imprisonment in lavish homes and sending them to wildlife sanctuaries.
Since the war started, Animals Lebanon has also been rescuing pets that have been trapped in damaged apartments as hundreds of thousands of Lebanese fled bombardment — almost 1,000 over the past month alone.
“Lots are still in our care because the owners of these animals are still displaced,” Mier said. “So, we can’t expect the person to take this animal back when he might be living on the street or in a school.”
Before the conflict escalated, the rights group was able to move around the country more freely as the fighting largely remained in southern Lebanon along the border with Israel. But things became more difficult as airstrikes became more frequent and spread over wider swathes of the country.
Unaware of the war around her, Sara thrived. She was fed a platter of raw meat daily and grew to 40 kilograms (88 pounds). She cuddled every morning with Mier’s wife Maggie, also an animal rights activist.
But the activists faced a major obstacle: How would they get her out of Lebanon?
Animals Lebanon collected donations from supporters and rights groups around the world to put Sara on a small yacht to take her to Cyprus. From there, she flew to the United Arab Emirates before her long journey ended in Cape Town.
Days before her evacuation Sara played in one of the bedrooms at Mier’s apartment, with cushions and chew toys scattered.
Thursday at dawn, she arrived to the port of Dbayeh, just north of Beirut. Mier and his team were relieved, but also struggling to hold back their tears at her departure.
Mier anticipates Sara will be held for monitoring and disease-control, but soon will be part of a community of other lions.
“Then she’ll be integrated with two recent lions that we’ve sent from Lebanon, so she’ll make a nice group of three hopefully,” he said. “That’s where she will live out the rest of her life. That is the best option for her.”
Palestinian militants release new clip of Israeli hostage Trupanov in Gaza
- Trupanov appealed to Aryeh Deri, a member of Israel’s governing coalition, to help free him and the other hostages held in Gaza
- In September, Deri described the act of bringing back the hostages as a “sacred duty“
JERUSALEM: A Palestinian militant group allied with Hamas released a new clip Friday of Israeli hostage Sasha Trupanov, held in Gaza since the October 2023 attack, after publishing a first video earlier this week.
Trupanov, identified by his relatives in the previous video released on Wednesday, appealed to Aryeh Deri — leader of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party Shas, a member of Israel’s governing coalition — to help free him and the other hostages held in Gaza.
The Shas party supports a deal for their release under the Jewish religious obligation to do everything possible to free captives.
In September, Deri described the act of bringing back the hostages as a “sacred duty.”
Trupanov, 29, is a dual Russian-Israeli citizen who was abducted with his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen, from the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Gaza border.
His mother and grandmother were also abducted and released along with Cohen during a week-long truce and hostage-prisoner exchange in November 2023.
His father, Vitaly, was killed in the October 7, 2023 attack, the deadliest in Israeli history.
This is now the fourth video of Trupanov released by Islamic Jihad.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called for the release of Trupanov and another hostage, Maxim Herkin, in comments made before the release of the latest clip.
“We reiterate our call for the immediate and unconditional release of all civilians held by Palestinian groups, with priority given to our compatriots,” she said.
Herkin, a 35-year-old Russian-Israeli citizen, was abducted at the Nova music festival.
Militants seized 251 hostages during the attack, some of them already dead.
Ninety-seven are still being held hostage, while 34 are confirmed dead but their bodies remain in Gaza.
The attack resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,764 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
