GNA enlisting help from ISIS in battles against LNA

Mustafa Kamel

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) tries to make a comeback to Libya, having been defeated in the North African state.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) is enlisting help from ISIS fighters in Syria and in Libyan prisons in its battles against the Libyan National Army (LNA). Turkey is instrumental in transferring the fighters of the terrorist organization from Syria to Libya.

Emergence

ISIS started appearing on the Libyan political stage on October 3, 2014, when dozens of people appeared in a video, swearing allegiance to then-ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Around those swearing allegiance to the ISIS caliph were trucks on which the ISIS slogan was painted.

Soon after this, Baghdadi approved the allegiance of the Libyan fighters. The whole of Libya was then divided into three ISIS provinces.

Abu Nabil al-Anbari was among the most outstanding ISIS commander in Libya. He was killed in an airstrike in the northeastern city of Derna in November 2014.

In 2015, ISIS declared its presence in the northern Libyan city of Sirte. This opened the door for foreign fighters to converge onto the Libyan city. This also caused friction between the ISIS fighters arriving in the city and the fighters of Ansar al-Sharia, another militant group that used to control the city.

Estimates put the number of ISIS fighters in Sirte at the time at 1,500.

Defeat

The residents of Derna grew intolerant to the practices of ISIS fighters. This paved the road for rifts within the terrorist group. Some of these rifts were based on ideological and religious lines.

Having undermined the group inside Sirte and other cities, these rifts also enabled Libyan troops to kick ISIS fighters out of the city in late 2016.

ISIS is officially defeated in Libya. However, some of its members have fled to some parts of the North African state. This means that it continues to pose a formidable threat in the country.

Increasing the enormity of this threat is also the fact that the GNA is enlisting help from ISIS fighters in fighting the LNA.

In December 2019, LNA Spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari said Turkey had transferred thousands of ISIS fighters from Syria to Libya.