The Rise and Mysterious Fall of Militant Islamist Movements in Libya
Wolfram Lacher
Decline: social disassociation and isolation
Can the role that social relations played also contribute to understanding the decline of militant Islamists?
On the one hand, social solidarity often seems to have slowed down processes of disassociation from jihadists or those who had contact with them.
This was evident, for example, in the attempts at dialogue with Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi or in the leniency shown to some of their comrades-in-arms in the fight against IS in Darna.
Although they rejected democracy and offered refuge to the Egyptian jihadist Omar Rifai Surur, it was thought that “such differences of opinion should be resolved through discussion, not war”.
Or in relationships with old friends such as a former Ansar al-Sharia cadre, about whom American military officers had asked the leader of the Benghazi Defence Companies, Ismail Sallabi: “I told them: ‘Yes, it’s true, Younes and I were old friends, even before 2011.
When he joined Ansar al-Sharia, we became estranged. After that, I only helped him with one very specific matter, and he was never in the Companies.”
Sallabi and another leader of the Companies, Ziyad Balam, showed a certain leniency towards figures whose relationships with terrorists made them jihadists themselves in the eyes of foreign intelligence services, even if these relationships were purely transactional in nature.
For example, Balam said of Saadi Nofili, who had appeared in a video with the Algerian terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar: “I asked Saadi about it. He explained to me that he had helped some people to get from Benghazi to Zalla in return for money, and only then did he find out who they were.
I assured myself that Saadi was not an extremist and that it was purely a business relationship. Nevertheless, the accusations were a liability for us and I asked him to voluntarily submit to a police investigation.” And Sallabi commented on the involvement of another shady figure in the battalions’ military operations: “Ahmed al-Hasnawi is a simple man.
He is not ‘alQaeda’. But that’s the way it is in the south, where you do business with everyone – with IS, al-Qaeda or whoever.” On the other hand, once militant Islamists experienced social ostracism, it was difficult to reverse.
This makes it easier to understand why Haftar’s opponents did not enter into a new tactical alliance with militant Islamists in 2019, but instead kept their distance from all those who were – rightly or wrongly – categorised as such.
A former LIFG leader attributed this to the experiences made in the fight against IS in Darna, Sabratha and Sirte: “Since then, the thuwwar [revolutionaries] knew that they could not trust jihadists.”
The repudiating effect of the brutality committed by IS also played an important role in this development. IS not only became an immediate threat; its ostentatious cruelty broke all boundaries of social acceptability.
The aforementioned fighter from Misrata, who joined the offensive against IS, also explained his mobilisation by saying that IS “dragged the image of Islam into the mud”. It is a common pattern for rebel groups or terrorist organisations to alienate supporters and sympathisers by using violence against civilians.
The stigma associated with the Islamist label since 2014 also contributed to the isolation of not only militant but also more moderate Islamists. Another former LIFG leader recalled: “Suddenly, people no longer wanted anything to do with us, they never wanted to have known us.
They lumped us all together – ‘the Islamists’. The demonisation by channels like al-Asema TV was very effective. They talked about the LIFG as if we were responsible for everything, as if we were behind everything.”
A cadre in the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood explained why the organisation changed its name in 2021 in an attempt to distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood: “The Muslim Brotherhood no longer finds any acceptance. No one will come to your office.
If I speak in the name of the Muslim Brotherhood, I am evil incarnate.” His name had appeared on a list of “terrorists” published by the parliament in eastern Libya, which was aligned with Haftar – with noticeable consequences in his social and professional environment, where some now treated him with suspicion.
And an activist from Darna, who tried to raise public awareness for prisoners from his hometown who were arbitrarily detained and tortured in Haftar’s prisons, said: “Nobody wants to talk about the prisoners because they are considered ‘Daesh’ (IS). If you talk about them, you are ‘Daesh’ yourself”.
Many of the activists, politicians and leaders of armed groups who saw themselves stigmatised in this way withdrew and became increasingly socially isolated – regardless of whether they remained in Libya or went into exile. This was the case, for example, with the former LIFG leaders in Istanbul.
The former leader of the Benghazi Defence Companies, Ismail Sallabi, reported that he only met with a few old friends in his Istanbul exile and no longer agreed to meet with journalists.
When Haftar attacked Tripoli, he wanted to fight – but he was told to stay away; his involvement would only do harm, since he was defamed as an extremist.
Another reason why tactical considerations did not lead to the expected comeback of militant Islamists in 2019, therefore, was because the latter had lost much of their social acceptance in the meantime and were now socially isolated.
Many of the trust relationships that militant Islamists had forged with their brothersin-arms through the joint fight in 2011 had long since been shattered by 2019.
The crucial experience of the confrontation with IS and the media’s demonisation of all Islamists played a significant role in this. However, the social networks that militant Islamists had been embedded in are likely to have impeded this evolution rather than facilitated it.
The fact that the tide turned so quickly and completely therefore requires further explanation.
***
Dr Wolfram Lacher is Senior Associate in the Africa and Middle East Research Division at SWP.
__________________
SWP Research Paper – June 2024 – German Institute for International and Security Affairs
