Libyan Islamic combat group

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Libyan Islamic Combat Group ( Arabic الجماعة الليبية المقاتلة, DMG al-ǧamāʿa al-lībiyya al-muqātila ; English Libyan Islamic Fighting Group , LIFG ) is a Libyan Islamist terrorist group with close ties to the international al-Qaeda network . Their recruiting base is mainly in Cyrenaica in northeast Libya.

Beginnings in Libya

The Libyan Islamic Combat Group was founded in Afghanistan in the 1990s by mujahideen returning from the war against the Soviet Union . In the first few years, the focus was on fighting the government under Muammar al-Gaddafi , who had been engaged in violent ideological disputes with orthodox Islamic clergy from Libya and Saudi Arabia since the early 1970s, and who were considered heretics .

The war returnees, initially only organized in small groups, appeared militant for the first time in June 1995 in eastern Libya. In September 1995 there were major skirmishes with Libyan security forces in Benghazi in which several dozen people were killed on both sides. In a communiqué published on October 18, the LIFG formally proclaimed its existence and declared the overthrow of the regime to be the "first duty of belief in God".

The aim of the organization was proclaimed the establishment of an Islamic state based on Sharia law in Libya. In the Salafist tradition, she sees the armed struggle against the enemies of God as a religious duty of Muslims. The LIFG is led by the so-called Shura Committee ( Majlis Shura ), which has up to fifteen members. There is also a legal committee that is responsible for ideological issues, propaganda and the training of members.

In March 1996 the group attempted an assassination attempt against al-Gaddafi in Sirte , in which several people died. A former British secret service official later reported that MI6 had supported the attack, but that this was officially denied.

In the following years the group was repeatedly involved in fighting with the Libyan armed forces , a total of 177 LIFG fighters and 160 Libyan security forces are said to have died in such battles. The heaviest fighting is said to have taken place in September 1997 near Darna , where up to 30,000 government soldiers surrounded numerous LIFG fighters. The battle ended in a heavy defeat for the organization. Numerous fighters and leadership members were killed or captured.

Since the LIFG was under great pressure after these events in Libya, it now increasingly sought the support of al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups abroad. Before the attacks on September 11, 2001 , up to 1,000 LIFG fighters were given military training in Afghan training camps .

Other members found political asylum in Great Britain, including Noman Benotman and Abu Anas al-Libi , who was later suspected to be one of the masterminds of the attacks against the US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi and who has been in US custody since October 2013. Against the background of the alleged involvement of official Libyan authorities in the Lockerbie attack , the formation of a support network for the LIFG on British soil was also tolerated, whose activities were only stopped in October 2005 under pressure from the USA.

Involvement in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan

In 2001, the LIFG was placed on the United Nations Terrorist List. As a result of the American offensive against Afghanistan in autumn 2001, the LIFG also lost its most important refuge, and numerous members were taken prisoner by the Americans. Of these, five are still in the American prison camp in Guantanamo , Cuba.

From 2003 onwards, the group was very active in recruiting fighters for the war in Iraq . The Sinjar Protocols captured by American forces in 2007 show that 112 of the 606 Iraqi jihadists known by name come from Libya. In relation to the population of their home country, the Libyan fighters made up by far the largest group. Benghazi and Darna in Kyrenaica were particularly prominent centers of recruitment.

According to an internal report by the American embassy in Tripoli , these fighters are said to have been recruited by a dense network of radical imams in eastern Libya, who preached there with pride in the jihadist tradition of the Senussi brotherhood and who are beyond the control of the Libyan authorities. The Canadian secret service described the region in a report in 2009 as " an epicenter of Islamist extremism ".

LIFG terrorists were also very active in Afghanistan at the same time. After the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in March 2003, the Libyan Abu Faraj al-Libi is said to have risen to number 3 in al-Qaeda after Osama bin Laden and Aiman ​​al-Zawahiri . However, he was arrested in Pakistan in May 2005.

With the mediation of al-Qaeda deputy chief Aiman ​​al-Zawahiri , the differences with al-Qaida in the Maghreb that had existed up to that point were settled in 2007 in order to enable better cooperation between the two North African Islamist groups. In November 2007, Al-Qaeda deputy chief Aiman ​​al-Zawahiri and LIFG representative Abu Laith al-Libi announced in a joint tape recording that the Libyan group had joined al-Qaeda. In the years that followed, Abu Laith al-Libi was also regarded as “number 3” of al-Qaeda in intelligence circles. However, because of the similarity of names, there were also major problems regarding the differentiation between the two Libyan leadership figures.

After the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, another prominent LIFG member, Abu Yahia al-Libi, is seen as one of the possible successors in the leadership position of the terror network. Abu Yahia has been regarded as the ideological spokesman for al-Qaida since his sensational escape from the American military prison in Bagram in July 2005 and has made significantly more appearances in the organization's video messages than other leading figures such as B. Osama bin Laden or Aiman ​​al Zawahiri.

Participation in the civil war in Libya

Due to international cooperation in the fight against terror - especially with the USA - the LIFG in Libya was largely defeated in 2007. Numerous leaders were in custody at the time. From 2009 the government launched a dropout program in which Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi played a leading role. In this context, numerous imprisoned LIFG members canceled terrorism in a joint statement in September 2009.

Between March 2010 and February 2011, 350 prisoners were released from prison for this reason, although American experts criticized the fact that insufficient rehabilitation and monitoring programs were in place to prevent those released from relapsing into a terrorist environment. The last 110 prisoners were only released on February 16, 2011, just before the civil war in Libya began . Among them was the LIFG leader Abu Idris al-Libi , the older brother of the al-Qaida spokesman Abu Yahia al-Libi, who works in Afghanistan.

At the beginning of the uprising, the Libyan revolutionary leader Gaddafi blamed Islamic extremism for it. In a speech on February 24, 2011 shortly after the revolt began, Gaddafi said that the uprising was inspired by the extremist organization al-Qaeda. The insurgents’s military and political leaders, however, rejected any connection with extremism. Western observers from countries that intervene militarily in Libya also denied Gaddafi's statements. The SACEUR of NATO General James Stavridis stated in a hearing in the US Senate that, according to intelligence information available, militant groups did not play a significant role in the uprising.

A non-governmental French team of experts who researched on site in March and April 2011, however, sees in its final report a considerable influence of former LIFG members and other militant Islamists among the insurgents. Accordingly, they should not only represent the largest group among these, but also have contributed significantly to the rapid escalation of the conflict.

According to media reports, several hundred LIFG members have been fighting against government troops in the civil war since February 2011, around 20 of them in military leadership positions. The representatives known by name include u. a. the commandant Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi , who quite frankly admitted his proximity to al-Qaida in a newspaper interview. In the first days of the Libyan civil war, on February 16, 2011, an arms depot of the Libyan army in Darna was attacked and captured. Two days later, the entire city was under the control of the insurgents. Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi is said to have declared the Islamic Emirate of Barqa in the city , which was confirmed a short time later by the Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini . Al-Hasidi later denied these reports, and he and his fighters were integrated into the newly formed Libyan National Liberation Army as the Darna Brigade .

The “Martyrs Brigade of February 17th”, which exercises internal security functions for the rebels, is also said to be interspersed with numerous former members of the combat group. According to one of his staff officers, the murder of the rebel military chief Abd al-Fattah Yunis in July 2011 was carried out by Islamists from this unit.

After the capture of Tripoli in August 2011, Abd al-Hakim Balhaj was commander-in-chief of the militias of the transition council in the capital, which had been imprisoned as a leading member of the LIFG until his release in March 2010. A few days later, Belhadj sharply criticized the involvement of the US and British authorities in his arrest at the time and announced that he would consider taking legal action against them.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Ehrhardt: Chaos as an opportunity. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Retrieved February 25, 2011 .
  2. ^ Institute for Islamic Issues of the Evangelical Alliance: Press release on the situation in Libya. (No longer available online.) March 31, 2011, archived from the original on May 14, 2011 ; Retrieved May 23, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.islaminstitut.de
  3. ^ A b c d NEFA Foundation: Dossier Libyan Islamic Fighting Group ( Memento of October 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), October 2007
  4. ↑ a b Peter Dale Scott: Who are the Libyan freedom fighters and their patrons? March 31, 2011, accessed June 4, 2011 .
  5. ↑ a b Moshe Terdman: The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (PDF; 287 kB), GLORIA Center, Volume 3, Number 2, May of 2005.
  6. ↑ Tom Levine: Cook: No involvement in Gaddafi assassination. In: Berliner Zeitung . August 11, 2008, accessed May 21, 2011 .
  7. ↑ a b c d Christopher Boucek: Dangerous Fallout from Libya's Implosion. In: Carnegie Endowment . March 11, 2011, accessed March 12, 2011 .
  8. ↑ Global Security: Profile Abu Anas al-Liby | access = 2011-06-04
  9. ↑ Keneth Rijock: Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Still Raising Funds in UK? July 25, 2011, accessed June 4, 2011 .
  10. ^ A b c Alfred Hackensberger: Jihadists are gaining influence in Libya. In: Welt Online . May 11, 2011, accessed May 13, 2011 .
  11. ^ New York Times Projects: The Guantanamo Docket: Citizens of Libya. Retrieved May 15, 2011 .
  12. ↑ Kevin Peraino: Destination Martyrdom. In: Newsweek . April 19, 2008, accessed May 13, 2011 .
  13. ↑ American Embassy Tripoli: Extremism in Eastern Libya. In: wikileaks / The Guardian . February 15, 2008, accessed May 20, 2011 .
  14. ↑ Robert Windrem: . Hunt on for al-Qaeda's No 3 man. In: MSNBC . July 9, 2004, accessed May 15, 2011 .
  15. ^ New York Times Projects: The Guantanamo Docket: Abu Faraj al Libi. Retrieved May 15, 2011 .
  16. ↑ a b Camille Tawil: Libyan poised to succeed bin Laden. In: Magharebia . May 18, 2011, accessed May 21, 2011 .
  17. ↑ Yassin Musharbash: Libyan jihadists join al-Qaeda. In: Spiegel Online . November 3, 2007, accessed April 26, 2011 .
  18. ^ Jason Burke: The demise of al-Qaida's 'number three'. In: The Guardian . January 31, 2008, accessed May 15, 2011 .
  19. ↑ Christina Lamb, Mohammad Shehzad: Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of 'mistaken identity'. In: Times Online . May 8, 2005, accessed July 31, 2008 .
  20. ↑ seventhpillar.net: The Libyan Islamic Combat Group. Retrieved May 1, 2011 .
  21. ^ Rebels Celebrate As Isolated Gaddafi Rages , Sky News, accessed June 17, 2011.
  22. ↑ Libya rebels rejects Gaddafi's al-Qaida spin , The Guardian, accessed June 17, 2011.
  23. ↑ A vision of a democratic Libya ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Libyan National Transitional Council, accessed June 17, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ntclibya.com
  24. ↑ Reuters, accessed June 17, 2011.
  25. ↑ CIRET-AVT & CF2R: Libye: Un Avenir Incertain. Compte-rendu de mission d'évaluation auprès des belligérants libyens ( Memento of the original of June 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 809 kB) Paris, May 31, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cf2r.org
  26. ^ John Rosenthal: al-Qaeda and Libyan Rebellion. (No longer available online.) In: National Review Online. June 23, 2011, archived from the original on June 26, 2011 ; accessed on June 26, 2011 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalreview.com
  27. ^ Libyan Rebels no democrats, report claims. In: Radio France International. June 14, 2011, accessed June 26, 2011 .
  28. Jump up ↑ Praveen Swami, Nick Squires and Duncan Gardham: Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links. In: The Telegraph . March 25, 2011, accessed May 15, 2011 .
  29. ↑ libyan islamists seize arms and take hostages. In: The Sydney Morning Herald . February 21, 2011, accessed May 25, 2011 .
  30. ↑ Alexander Cockburn: Libya Rebels: Gaddafi coud be right about al-Qaida. In: The First Post . March 24, 2011, accessed May 25, 2011 .
  31. ^ Al-Qaeda sets up islamic emirates. In: news.com. February 24, 2011, accessed May 25, 2011 .
  32. ^ Libyan rebels 'killed their leader'. In: Sky News. July 30, 2011, accessed September 5, 2011 .
  33. ↑ M. Khayat: The Salafi-Jihadi Challenge in Libya Part II: The Role of the LIFG and Its Former Commander 'Abd Al-Hakim Belhadj. In: MEMRI.org. August 26, 2011, accessed September 5, 2011 .
  34. ^ Rebel officer considering lawsuit against USA and Great Britain. In: Spiegel Online . September 5, 2011, accessed September 5, 2011 .