With leaflets and spreading terror, ISIS in Libya is looking for a new role

Sherif Abdel-Zahir

Turkey continues to transfer fighters of armed factions from the Syrian north to Libya, to join the ranks of the Al-Wefaq government militias in Tripoli, in an attempt to halt the progress of the Libyan national army forces; and recently the army announced that the terrorist ISIS organization appeared again inside Tripoli, in conjunction with the spread of the mercenaries of the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The media center of the Libyan Army’s Al-Karamah Operations Room released, in a statement, on Wednesday, February 12, a picture of a terrorist organization’s publications in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, stressing that ISIS elements distribute these publications to the Libyans.

According to the spokesman for the Libyan National Army, Major General Ahmed Al-Mesmari, Turkish intelligence is transporting ISIS and Al-Nusra Front elements from Syria to the fighting in Libya.

Merging fighters

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed that Syrian factions loyal to Turkey have opened registration centers for those who wish to move to Libya, as 4 of them were opened to attract fighters in Afrin (north of Aleppo Governorate), noting that the four offices are supervised by the factions of the “Al Hamzat Division, the front Al-Shamiya, al-Mu’tasim Brigade, al-Sham Brigade”.

Besides, the Syrian National News Agency, SANA, stated that the factions received Turkish instructions to register the names of those wishing to go to Libya to fight alongside the forces of the government of reconciliation, explaining that a Turkish military plane, amid security restrictions, went from Gaziantep Civil Airport in southern Turkey towards the Libyan lands with 300 members of the Second Legion fighters on board, known as the “pro-Turkish Syrian National Army”, led by the commander of the Sultan Murad Brigade, Fahim Issa.

The American Institute of Jet Stone published a report at the end of 2019, in which it confirmed that the state of political instability in Libya gives way to the organization ISIS to reorganize its ranks.

He pointed out that the Libyan territories are now considered one of the main axes of future organization operations, to compensate for the loss of its influence in Syria and Iraq.

In May 2019, ISIS adopted a terrorist attack that targeted an oil field in the town of Zala, a municipality of Al-Jafra, 650 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tripoli, in an escalation of ISIS attacks against sites controlled by the Libyan National Army in the south of the country.

The possibility of increased terrorist operations

Abdul Sattar Hittita, a researcher specializing in Libyan affairs, warns of the possibility of increasing terrorist operations, for individual wolves, especially in Iraq, Syria and Libya, after the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, during a raid carried out by the American forces on October 27, 2019.

He added in a statement to the Reference that there are fears of the rapprochement of ISIS, al-Qaeda and mercenaries of the Turkish president in Libya, expecting that the coming period will be more terrorist operations that IS will attribute to itself, in an effort to confuse the street and make it live in a state of anticipation, fear or terror.