Gadhafi's hometown falls to Islamic State in anarchic Libya

The militants have effectively taken over former dictator Mu’ammar Gadhafi’s home city of Sirte as they exploit a civil war between two rival governments to expand in North Africa.

“Every night they open fire on us,” says Abu Shebar, who with comrades on Sirte’s western outskirts holds the last position of troops belonging to one of the two warring Libyan governments, the General National Congress, which controls the capital Tripoli and most of the country’s west.

“They are only active at night,” he says, pointing to the militants’ position in a house just down the road blocked by sandbags. He sleeps in a shed next to his firing positions where used tank shells litter the ground.

Libya, which has descended into near anarchy since Nato warplanes helped rebels overthrow Gadhafi in a 2011 civil war, is now the third big stronghold for the Sunni Islamist group, which declared a Caliphate in the territory it holds in Syria and Iraq.

Islamic State fighters became a major force last year in Derna, a jihadi bastion in Libya’s east, and quickly spread to the biggest eastern city Benghazi, where they have conducted suicide bombings on streets divided among armed factions.

By occupying Sirte over the past four months they have claimed a major city in the centre of the country, astride the coastal highway that links the east and west.

They made their presence known to the world in February by kidnapping and beheading more than 20 Egyptian Christian oil workers on a beach and posting video on the Internet.

Their gains in Libya, just across the sea from Italy, are worrying European governments and north African neighbours. But so far Western countries, which are bombing Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq, have steered clear of that sort of intervention in Libya.

 

Exploiting a breakdown

Islamic State’s expansion in Libya has been helped by a breakdown of state authority.

Neither of Libya’s two warring governments exercises much formal control of territory. Both field troops that call themselves armies but are in fact loose alliances of former rebels who toppled Gadhafi, refused to disarm, and have since fallen out along tribal, political and regional lines.

Both governments pay fighters with cash from Libya’s oil exports, giving them funds and incentive to fuel the war indefinitely.

Islamic State opposes both governments, exploiting local resentments and power vacuums. It took Sirte from the government based in Tripoli, which draws its support mainly from fighters from the western city of Misrata, who emerged as some of the most powerful in the country after Gadhafi’s fall.

Islamic State gunmen arrived in the area in pickup trucks in February when the Misrata forces were busy 150km to the east trying to wrestle away Libya’s biggest oil port, Es Sider, from forces backing the other government, now based in the east.

When the Misratis returned in force to Sirte in March after failing to seize Es Sider, Islamic State had already set up checkpoints. The jihadists have since steadily widened their control. The last checkpoint held by the Misratis is now a kilometre further from the city centre than it was when Reuters visited two months ago.

“They are now shelling the power station so we’ve moved back the last checkpoint for civilians,” says Yuhami Ahmed, a commander of the Misrata troops based on the western outskirts near a plant that supplies the area with electricity.

Sirte residents who pass between the two frontlines to get petrol in suburbs under control of the Misrata forces describe hardship inside a city no longer served by the state oil firm.

“We only have power sometimes,” says the owner of a cafe at a petrol station who gave his name as Salah.

Another resident fetched water in a closed restaurant used by the Misratis as a rest area. He says he has no water at home.

 

Gadhafi loyalists

The Misrata forces compare the stand-off to 2011, when Gadhafi made his last stand in Sirte while they besieged and shelled it. Gadhafi was eventually captured and lynched by rebels outside Sirte after trying to escape on the same road again blockaded by the Misratis.

Yuhami, the Misrata commander near the power plant, says their new opponent Islamic State is strong because of the backing of Gadhafi loyalists and foreigners.

“They have been joined by foreigners, Sudanese, Tunisians, Egyptians, Yemenis,” he says, standing in front of Toyota truck, the standard vehicle of his troops. “They have 106s,” he says, referring to large calibre guns.

He and several of his men put the number of Islamic State rebels in Sirte at more than a hundred.

So far, Islamic State has not gained territory as quickly in Libya as it did in Iraq and Syria, where it portrays itself as a defender of Sunni Islam in sectarian wars against governments led by Shi’ite Muslims. Libyans are overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims, and their divisions tend to be tribal and regional rather than sectarian. But Sirte, where homes were looted by Misrata rebels after Gadhafi’s fall, is fertile ground. Many residents feel they were losers in the revolution and harbour resentment towards the Misrata fighters.