INTAFF/POL-Libya and its extremists

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Libya and its extremists


Passing the buck

The incoming authorities may be wary of tackling the extremists head on


Sep 22nd 2012 | BENGHAZI |


THE mood is jumpy in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, as it is in Benghazi, the second city, where the American ambassador and three of his colleagues were killed in the consulate on September 11th. The prime minister, Mustafa Abushagur, who was elected by Libya’s new proto-parliament the day after the murders, has yet to pick a government, so seems unable to order his security forces into action against the presumed perpetrators. Most Libyans sound strongly opposed to them. But it is uncertain whether they will rapidly be brought to justice. If not, Libya’s incoming government will have got off to a shaky start.

The acting interior minister and his deputy, members of the outgoing caretaker government that is still the country’s executive power, have been at embarrassing odds over who precisely was responsible for the attack on the consulate and who has been—or should be—arrested. In Benghazi the police, the interior ministry and the Supreme Security Council, a powerful agency set up under the outgoing transitional authorities, are all passing the buck, saying it is not their job to investigate.

The new parliament’s speaker, Muhammad Megarief, the acting head of state, has been most outspoken in condemning the attacks and in demanding a wholesale assault on Ansar al-Sharia, the jihadist group that eyewitnesses say was responsible for them.

The upshot, so far, is an edgy stand-off between assorted security forces on the one hand and the jihadists on the other. Ansar al-Sharia says it is braced for a fight. It has a base in Benghazi and controls the al-Jala hospital, where two of its wounded men are holed up. They have yet to be arrested or questioned by the army or security men, as the group has eight armed jeeps blocking the entrance to the hospital.

Mr Megarief says signals were intercepted between Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, an umbrella for jihadist groups in north Africa. “They have an ambition perhaps to establish an Islamic state across the Maghreb,” he says, calling for every available unit to be deployed against Ansar al-Sharia, including a powerful group of former anti-Qaddafi rebels known as the national shield.

Yousef Mangoush, the army chief of staff, one of few commanders respected by both the national army and the national shield, holds a similarly robust view. General Hamid Belkhair, a long-serving career officer who commands the national army’s Benghazi garrison, says his units are ready to fight any militia, including Ansar al-Sharia, that refuses to lay down its arms and join the regular army or police. The jihadists’s opponents, including students and civil-rights campaigners, say they plan to march on September 21st to Ansar al-Sharia’s base and to order its fighters to give up their weapons.

Tackling the jihadists will be crucial for the new government’s authority. Mr Megarief wants the army and the shield to close down three Benghazi militias forthwith. Two should go quietly but Ansar al-Sharia is another matter. It is unclear whether indictments will be issued against its members and, if so, whether the police will then try to arrest them. Mr Megarief says it will be a “turning point” in Libya’s transition. If the jihadists are not faced down, Libya’s fragile democracy, he fears, could fail.



Source: www.economist.com