ISIS is now in Libya

[rufuspaul]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world/isis-libya/index.html


Thanks Obama!




(CNN) -- The black flag of ISIS flies over government buildings. Police cars carry the group's insignia. The local football stadium is used for public executions. A town in Syria or Iraq? No. A city on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Libya.
Fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are now in complete control of the city of Derna, population of about 100,000, not far from the Egyptian border and just about 200 miles from the southern shores of the European Union.
The fighters are taking advantage of political chaos to rapidly expand their presence westwards along the coast, Libyan sources tell CNN.

The sources say the Derna branch of ISIS counts 800 fighters and operates half a dozen camps on the outskirts of the town, as well as larger facilities in the nearby Green Mountains, where fighters from across North Africa are being trained.
It has been bolstered by the return to Libya from Syria and Iraq of up to 300 Libyan jihadists who were part of ISIS' al Battar Brigade -- deployed at first in Deir Ezzor in Syria and then Mosul in Iraq. These fighters supported the Shura Council for the Youth of Islam in Derna, a pro-ISIS faction.
The council had been competing for superiority with another militant group, the Abu Salem Brigade, some of whose fighters' loyalties lay with al Qaeda, according to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan jihadist now involved in counter-terrorism for the Quilliam Foundation.
Al Qaeda's top envoy in Libya, Abdulbasit Azuz, left Derna after U.S. Special Forces captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah, an alleged ringleader of the Benghazi attacks in June. Azuz is now believed to be in Syria, Benotman told CNN.
Amateur video from the end of October showed a large crowd of militants affiliated with the Shura Council for the Youth of Islam chanting their allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The new ISIS wing in Derna calls itself the "Barqa" provincial division of the Islamic State, the name given to the eastern region of Libya when Islamic rule replaced the Roman Empire.
The Libyan branch of ISIS now has a tight grip on the city, controlling the courts, all aspects of administration, education, and the local radio. "Derna today looks identical to Raqqa, the ISIS headquarters town in Syria," Benotman told CNN.

[Patrick Chewing]

The bigger picture here is the repressive nature of Islam as a whole. Things like this would not happen in a modern society. There is no way that 800 militants can take over a town of 100,000. For every 1 ISIS fighter, there's 125 Libyans that can defend their homeland.

Repressive Islam is stuck in the stone age as the barbaric religion teaches its followers to submit. Therefore, it is easy to conquer and be conquered in the Islamic world. That's why ISIS controls the town. There is no self-awareness of survivability. Whatever happens in the Muslim world, whether good or bad is just the will of God.

[Dresta]

Thanks Obama you dick!

[LJJ]

This news is at least a month old.

Truth is that all the Arab spring movements are and were for the most part incited by groups that aren't IS in name only. But if you looked at the way it was reported in the media at the time, you would never know it and the Arab Spring was a movement of "liberal, democratic students" rather than a movement of mostly rabid Islamists.

[KingBeasley08]

This news is at least a month old.

Truth is that all the Arab spring movements are and were for the most part incited by groups that aren't IS in name only. But if you looked at the way it was reported in the media at the time, you would never know it and the Arab Spring was a movement of "liberal, democratic students" rather than a movement of mostly rabid Islamists.
I'll admit I was guilty of thinking that. I didn't figure out what was going on until Muslim Brotherhood took over in Egypt

[tomtucker]

Thanks Obama ? ...........wasn

[fiddy]

Libya, Nigeria, Egypt, Lebanon...

[bagelred]

ISIS is complete bullshit.

[Rodmantheman]

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5251/5469597339_7403a6bfe3.jpg

[KevinNYC]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world/isis-libya/index.html


Thanks Obama!

From the same article


Derna has a long history of Islamist radicalism. Marginalized during the Gadhafi era, it contributed more foreign fighters per capita to al Qaeda in Iraq than any other town in the Middle East. It has also provided scores of fighters for ISIS in Syria.

So this goes back at least to the aughts. Islamist militias have existed in Libya since the mid 90s when jihadists returned from Afghanistan.

[knickballer]

From the same article



So this goes back at least to the aughts. Islamist militias have existed in Libya since the mid 90s when jihadists returned from Afghanistan.

It wasn't until the US toppled a fairly secular regime for regional standards and supported rebels with clear ties to Islamist Jihadist organizations that extremism rose significantly. But don't listen to the media as they will say the revolution from women seeking to better themselves.

[KevinNYC]

So what this sounds like to me is a local existing Libyan Jihadist militia has changed names and pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi of ISIS.

This has been going on for a while now. I think I may have been the first person on this board to talk about ISIS with this post (http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9798496&postcount=6) about how Al Qaeda was declining and more and more groups were pledging allegiance to ISIS.


Actually Al Qaeda has been losing power for a while now.

Many analysts now believe that Al Qaeda under Ayman al-Zawahiri is no longer the premiere jihadi network worldwide. Zawahiri was never as popular as Bin Laden and he's having trouble keeping the group together. There's a big fracture happening in the jihadi world.

ISIS which used to be Al Qaeda in Iraq is no longer under Zawahiri's control and group after group is sided with ISIS

While there is much we don't know about the current size and operational status of AQC, there is ample evidence that the top-down command structure -- with Zawahiri's organization on top of the pyramid -- is, at a minimum, under tremendous pressure.
We can debate whether it has completely collapsed, whether it is severely damaged, whether it is still hanging on, and whether it might mount a comeback, but the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that control of al Qaeda's affiliates is slipping out of Zawahiri's hands. This weekend's disavowal of ISIS by AQC is only the most recent and explicit example.
We sometimes talk about al Qaeda and its affiliates as if this structure has a clear precedent, deep roots, and a long history of cohesion. In fact, the "affiliate program" was barely off the ground before cracks began to form. Al Qaeda in Iraq, and its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, went off the rails almost immediately, and AQC tried -- futilely -- to rein him in through private correspondence, which was captured in Iraq and Afghanistan and later published by the U.S. government. The conflict was only resolved with Zarqawi's death in 2006.
Today, Zawahiri has indisputably lost control of AQI, now known as ISIS. In June, ISIS tried to take control of al Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al Nusra. When Zawahiri came down in support of the powerful newcomer, ISIS openly defied him, with its emir posting a video online explicitly rejecting the order to confine its activities to Iraq.

This has led fighting among jihadi groups in Syria. And now groups are having to decide who to be loyal to.

[RidonKs]

big surprise

[KevinNYC]

My post was informed by these analysts view of the dynamics of what was going on in the jihadi world.
http://www.fpri.org/docs/resize/Berger_State_of_Play-600x285.png
http://www.fpri.org/docs/resize/Figure_4_alternate-600x436.png

http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2014/03/isis-rise-after-al-qaedas-house-cards-part-4-smarter-counterterrorism

[KingBeasley08]

lol if Obama was the one who started the war in Iraq, Kevin would have even spun that to a plus

[KevinNYC]

Analysts have been looking at the waning of Al Qaeda as the jihadist leader for a little while now (http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2014/03/isis-rise-after-al-qaedas-house-cards-part-4-smarter-counterterrorism)

http://www.fpri.org/docs/resize/Berger_State_of_Play-600x285.png

http://www.fpri.org/docs/resize/Figure_4_alternate-600x436.png

[LJJ]

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter which faction of Islamist insurgents these people belong to, these factions will work together. Al Quada and IS have already put their minor (and very possibly delusive) squable aside and agreed to work together.

[KevinNYC]

lol if Obama was the one who started the war in Iraq, Kevin would have even spun that to a plus

I haven't spun anything in this thread. My problem with that CNN article is it doesn't fully explain the context. There's a civil war going on in Libya in 2014 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Libyan_Civil_War) and the article hardly mentions that. This group is just one of the groups fighting there.


The original sin of the Iraq War was it was a war of choice. There was no reason in 2001 why we had to invade. That is why they spent all of 2002 selling the war.

ISIS has sprung up for reasons that were not US decisions. We did not cause the Syrian civil war and we didn't cause Assad to empty his jails of Jihadists and start funding them through oil purchases either. We also didn't cause Nouri al-Maliki to so alienate the Sunnis, they would side with ISIS.

[KevinNYC]

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter which faction of Islamist insurgents these people belong to, these factions will work together. Al Quada and IS have already put their minor (and very possibly delusive) squable aside and agreed to work together.

Not all of them will work together or ISIS wouldn't have defied Al Qaeda and made a bid for supremacy.

I don't know what you mean by delusional squabble as these groups were killing each other earlier this year and yes it seems like they now have a truce but that is only because they have started losing battles. I don't see this as a long lasting alliance.

[RidonKs]

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter which faction of Islamist insurgents these people belong to, these factions will work together. Al Quada and IS have already put their minor (and very possibly delusive) squable aside and agreed to work together.
why are they coalescing?

this is a leading question btw, but i'm curious what you think. the easier rebuttal to your claim of an inevitable trend toward unity is in kevin's post above.

[LJJ]

why are they coalescing?

this is a leading question btw, but i'm curious what you think. the easier rebuttal to your claim of an inevitable trend toward unity is in kevin's post above.

Because, as much as the leaders of these groups might want as much personal power as possible, their fighters certainly won't fight eachother and have virtually identical ideals.

KevinNYC will try to tell that "but, they were fighting each other just two months ago". Yeah that's why IS has been expanding so greatly without any major losses, despite their territory in Syria coming straight out of the Al Quada groups pockets for the most part. Their fighting has mostly been "x group joins AQ, y group joins IS" and consolidating areas of control, their hasn't been much bloodshed at all. The real fighting happens between IS & AQ versus Assad, the Kurds and Iraq since the beginning. With a very small, insignificant troupe of unafilliated Syrian forces who have been hopelessly exaggerated and propped up by the media yet are entirely insignificant in the conflict.

[KevinNYC]

Because, as much as the leaders of these groups might want as much personal power as possible, their fighters certainly won't fight eachother and have virtually identical ideals.

KevinNYC will try to tell that "but, they were fighting each other just two months ago". Yeah that's why IS has been expanding so greatly without any major losses, despite their territory in Syria coming straight out of the Al Quada groups pockets for the most part. Their fighting has mostly been "x group joins AQ, y group joins IS" and consolidating areas of control, their hasn't been much bloodshed at all. The real fighting happens between IS & AQ versus Assad, the Kurds and Iraq since the beginning. With a very small, insignificant troupe of unafilliated Syrian forces who have been hopelessly exaggerated and propped up by the media yet are entirely insignificant in the conflict.

So what do you mean by delusional?
And do you deny they were fighting each other in first half of this year?

In general that bold part doesn't make sense and I don't think you understand a multi-party, multi-front civil war. Are you saying the Nusra Front was fighting the Iraqi army?

[LJJ]

So what do you mean by delusional?
And do you deny they were fighting each other in first half of this year?

In general that bold part doesn't make sense and I don't think you understand a multi-party, multi-front civil war. Are you saying the Nusra Front was fighting the Iraqi army?

There is fighting and then there is fighting. Minor skirmishes and bee stings because Al Quada and IS both prefer to be the dominant side? Sure. Major battles and sieges with lots of casualties, mass killings, mass executions between them? No.


The Nusra front is in coalition with the groups that fight the Iraqi army. They are not the same faction, but at the same time, they are almost a unit in the same army at this point.

[rufuspaul]

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/revisiting-the-libyan-war/


[QUOTE]Marc Lynch revisits what academics said about the Arab uprisings as they were happening, and identifies what many got wrong. He addresses his support for intervention in Libya:

The Libya intervention is one of the very few military actions in the region that I have ever supported

[MavsSuperFan]

Removing Gaddafi was a huge mistake. Dictators > Islamists. Can not expect better than relatively secular dictators/fake religious dictators (those that are not devout) in the middle east.

[Dave3]

Libya, Nigeria, Egypt, Lebanon...
They're not in Egypt yet. I'm inclined to think that they would have a more difficult time getting into Egypt than other countries in the area just because I'd think Sisi and the military would put up quite a fight. We'll see though.

[JohnFreeman]

ISIS will fall apart once they fight a real army

[MavsSuperFan]

ISIS will fall apart once they fight a real army
very few of them exist in the middle east.

ISIS can just take their parts of iraq and syria and be happy with that.

[KevinNYC]

They're not in Egypt yet. I'm inclined to think that they would have a more difficult time getting into Egypt than other countries in the area just because I'd think Sisi and the military would put up quite a fight. We'll see though.

As in Libya, an existing Egyptian militant group joined them in the past two weeks. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/20/world/meast/isis-egypt-franchise/)

[Dresta]

My post was informed by these analysts view of the dynamics of what was going on in the jihadi world.
http://www.fpri.org/docs/resize/Berger_State_of_Play-600x285.png
http://www.fpri.org/docs/resize/Figure_4_alternate-600x436.png

http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/2014/03/isis-rise-after-al-qaedas-house-cards-part-4-smarter-counterterrorism
:lol

What a cogent analysis...

[fiddy]

but but but....I thought freedom loving democrats ruled Libya now? Isnt that why the war happened? To bring freedom?

PS. LOL @ the title. ISIS "now" in Libya. Worse factions than ISIS have been in Libya since the beggining with complete support from America and their Allies.
Just like democratic Iraq, that...is about to fall apart.

[wakencdukest]

Removing Gaddafi was a huge mistake. Dictators > Islamists. Can not expect better than relatively secular dictators/fake religious dictators (those that are not devout) in the middle east.


Good point. Islamist run countries tend to be extremely unstable.

[fiddy]

Good point. Islamist run countries tend to be extremely unstable.
Libya is not run by Islamist, rather than pro-western "democratic" government.

[LJJ]

Libya is not run by Islamist, rather than pro-western "democratic" government.

Huge parts of Libya are run by Islamists and the country is in civil war. There is no de facto goverment of whole Libya.

[JEFFERSON MONEY]

Question is?

How will this impact Gaddafi's legacy.

Ba dum tsss

[fiddy]

Huge parts of Libya are run by Islamists and the country is in civil war. There is no de facto goverment of whole Libya.
I know, but there is a government that is backed by the UN and the international community, which doesnt make Libya Islamist run as someone claimed earlier.

[Eric Cartman]

but but but....I thought freedom loving democrats ruled Libya now? Isnt that why the war happened? To bring freedom?

PS. LOL @ the title. ISIS "now" in Libya. Worse factions than ISIS have been in Libya since the beggining with complete support from America and their Allies.

Very well said, why aren't people getting this?

[wakencdukest]

Libya is not run by Islamist, rather than pro-western "democratic" government.




When we invade countries in the middle east and remove leaders, the countries are inevitably taken over by Muslim extremists, making them more unstable than they were, Whether we back them or not.

[rufuspaul]

George W. must have somehow organized our involvement in Libya. No way St. Obama could be blamed for any of it.

[Rodmantheman]

Question is?

How will this impact Gaddafi's legacy.

Ba dum tsss

Having a knife stuck up his ass before getting killed.

[fiddy]

new IS propaganda video
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b8a_1416644493

[Dresta]

Sending children to be massacred? How typical.

[kNicKz]

The bigger picture here is the repressive nature of Islam as a whole. Things like this would not happen in a modern society. There is no way that 800 militants can take over a town of 100,000. For every 1 ISIS fighter, there's 125 Libyans that can defend their homeland.

Repressive Islam is stuck in the stone age as the barbaric religion teaches its followers to submit. Therefore, it is easy to conquer and be conquered in the Islamic world. That's why ISIS controls the town. There is no self-awareness of survivability. Whatever happens in the Muslim world, whether good or bad is just the will of God.

Yeah because the average Libyan has military grade assault rifles, armored trucks, and explosives at their disposal :facepalm

It's merely economic. They are conquering helpless people. This wouldn't happen in America simply because people would just purchase shotguns and murder them and we also have this thing called the military.

This entire ISIS conflict is about the control of resources and geography. The religious aspect of it is a front, just a means of justifying control.

[MavsSuperFan]

Libya is not run by Islamist, rather than pro-western "democratic" government.
The official government in Libya controls very little of the country

Actual power > official power

[tomtucker]

days of small knives is over !....just google: " New Super Beheading With HUGE Sword "
.
:biggums:
.
******.com/murder/new-super-beheading-with-a-huge-sword.htm


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