Islamists seize Tripoli’s airport, announce new government

While fighting is continuing to the west of Tripoli, Islamist brigades in Benghazi, 400 miles to the east, are battling with army units and nationalist militias of the former general Khalifa Hiftar. General Hitfar, impatient with the incompetence and corruption of whatever was left of the national military, has created his own militia, consisting of entire military units which had defected to join him. Hitfar was also able to persuade some of the units in Libya’s air force to join him, so his militia is the only private militia in Libya with its own air force.

Regional experts say that developments over the weekend threaten to move Libya across the line from troubled post-Arab spring country to outright failed state.

Egypt, Sudan, and Algeria have been watching developments in Libya with growing concern. Two weeks ago, former Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa said that Egypt might send its troops into east Libya to prevent the creation of an anti-Egyptian Islamist haven there, and last week the French president, François Hollande, said that despite the crises in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, and Gaza, his “biggest concern at the moment is Libya”.

The worries of neighboring states are heightened by the fact that the Dawn coalition is now in control of three airports, from which terrorist attacks on surrounding nations could be launched. As if to prove these worries, Dawn officials promised to retaliate against Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, accusing these two countries for sending jetfighters Saturday morning to attack Dawn forces in an effort to prevent them from taking over the airport at Tripoli. The airstrikes killed seventeen Misrata militia fighters.

“The Emirates and Egypt are involved in this cowardly aggression, we reserve the right to respond at the opportune moment,” said Ahmed Hadia, a spokesman for Dawn.

Algeria, in the meantime, said it has deployed air defense missiles on its border while Libya and Tunisia has banned flights from west Libya airports.

The besieged Libyan government has also announced it was withdrawing as host for the African Soccer Cup of Nations in 2017 because it could not guarantee security in the country.

The Guardian reports that Libyan officials have arrived in Egypt today to appeal for military support against the Islamists. Libya’s foreign minister, Mohamed Abdul Aziz, in July made a similar appeal at the UN, but found no support.

Many Libyan now believe fragmentation of the country is inevitable, with Islamist-led forces strong in the east and, now, the northwest, with tribal and nationalists dominant in the rest of the country.

Another problem for the official government is that most of Libya’s oil fields, and most of the country’s oil terminals, are in the east – the part of the country where the Islamists have been in control for nearly three years now. Efforts by Islamist militias to export this oil have so far failed, but it is not clear how long it will be before buyers would be tempted by the bargain prices on offer.

While military intervention by Egypt and Algeria is possible, especially if the security situation deteriorates further, it is not likely that such intervention would go beyond securing the border areas these countries are worried about.

Experts say a NATO military intervention in Libya is unlikely.

Camille Grand, director of the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique, told the Guardian: “NATO got its hands busy with Ukraine. And in France, everyone’s looking at Iraq, Syria and the Sahel.

“Who would be the driving force? And what would be the trigger now that French nationals have been evacuated? There aren’t any volunteers to get involved in a quagmire that looks like Somalia now.”