The Guardian reports: The president of Libya’s parliament, Mohamed al-Magariaf, has said military action is being considered against militants blamed for the killing of the US ambassador Chris Stevens.

Magariaf also confirmed reports from Washington that US officials intercepted communications discussing the planned attack on the UN consulate in Benghazi, which he said linked al-Qaida in the Maghreb to an Islamist brigade, Ansar al-Sharia. “Yes, that happened,” he said.

Magariaf said the intercepts matched other evidence indicating members of the brigade took part in Tuesday’s all-night assault on the compound and an accommodation site. “It seems there is a division within Ansar al-Sharia about this attack, some for participation, some against,” he said. “We are in the process of investigation.”

Such transmissions would be powerful evidence linking al-Sharia to the attack, and Magariaf said Libya had been passed the information by the US government. He confirmed that the intercepted communications discussed the timing of last week’s assault. But he urged the US not to act unilaterally, fearing it would antagonise public opinion.

“We will not hesitate to act, to do what is our duty,” Magariaf said. “Let us start first by ourselves and if we are not capable, then whoever can help us. My experience with the Americans, they know what they have to do.”

His comments came as Libya’s interior ministry said that weekend raids had led to the arrest of 50 suspects, but gave no details and did not say whether they were Islamist militants.

Tension is building in Benghazi amid speculation that military action is imminent against the al-Sharia brigade, whose commanders deny responsibility for the consulate attack.

Two US warships equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles are stationed off the coast and a propeller-driven aircraft with no lights, thought to be a drone, has spent hours in the skies above the city for the past two nights.

The Pentagon has dispatched elite marine rapid response teams to Libya and Yemen, but a team deployed to Khartoum on Friday was turned back when the Sudanese government objected.

The US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, said on Sunday the Pentagon had “deployed our forces to a number of areas in the region to be prepared to respond to any requests that we receive to be able to protect our personnel and our American property”.

The al-Sharia brigade remains in its base in Benghazi, and its soldiers are guarding a hospital where medical officials say two wounded militants are being treated. Sharia guards there refused to allow access or comment on the attack.

Magariaf said the attack on the US mission, the fifth on diplomatic targets in Benghazi since April, was part of a wider campaign by militants to destabilise Libya, taking advantage of the disorder of a country still without cohesive government.

“This is a turning point for the country. The confrontation is necessary and inevitable with these elements,” he said. “[It is] either them or Libya being safe and united. Today it is the Americans, tomorrow it is going to be Libyans.”

Magariaf rose to prominence in the 1980s when, having fled to Britain, he led the anti-Gaddafi National Front for the Salvation of Libya. He won a seat in the new parliament in July in an election in which tribal and liberal parties prevailed against the Muslim Brotherhood.

He said he had evidence “foreign countries” were involved in supporting the attack on the consulate but declined to name them. “It’s a deliberate, calculated action by a group working in collaboration with non-Libyan extremists. I would not be surprised if it’s another country, but it’s not Saudi Arabia or Qatar, I’m sure.”

In Benghazi, evidence linking members of the Sharia brigade to the attack is growing. The chief of the city’s supreme security council, Libya’s gendarmerie, said witnesses and mobile phone footage showed members were involved.

This was confirmed by an eyewitness who was among bystanders who turned up to see what began as an anti-US protest on Tuesday night. [Continue reading…]

The Libya Herald reports: In his strongest attack to date of the actions of extremists, Libya’s Grand Mufti, Sheikh Sadeq Al-Ghariani, has issued a fatwa condemning Tuesday’s killing of US Ambassador Chris Stevens along with three other American diplomatic staff and a number of Libya security guards. He said those involved were criminals who were damned by their action.

He also condemned the production of any film, picture or article insulting the Prophet Mohammad or any of the prophets by “extreme fanatics” in the US or elsewhere.

The Prophet Muhammad, Ghariani said, had specifically forbidden the killing of ambassadors and envoys.

He also pointed to a hadith in which the Prophet had said: “He who kills a confederate will not enter paradise.” (A “confederate” is seen as someone who come to a Muslim country and lives peacefully among Muslims.)

The fatwa criminalised anyone taking part in armed attacks without the consent of the legitimate authorities.

What had happened in Benghazi was, it stated, “an attempt to undermine state authority”. It said that all Libyans who cared about their country, anyone who was intelligent, indeed anyone who considered themselves as Muslims should “despise” what had happened.

“Such an act, in fact, is likely to cause severe harm to the higher interests of the country, could unite nations against us, would give others justification to classify us amongst states sponsoring terrorism”, the fatwa stated.

Accusing extremists of twisting and perverting the message of Islam, it added that the attack could “give Islam a bad name, inciting hatred towards us, putting off those who were contemplating Islam”. It could even create a backlash among Muslims.

Ghariani’s ruling also accused the authorities over the killings. The attack was a “clear indication of chaotic security”, it declared. What had happened was the inevitable result of nothing being done in recent months about several violent incidents carried out by armed militias “which used arms without the authority of the state”.

Amena Raghei writes: During the Gaddafi regime, women’s participation in Libyan public life was perceived as little more than a tool in Gaddafi’s arsenal of oppression. Recent interviews with female activists and candidates repeatedly echo the sentiment that, unlike today, women who took on public roles during Gaddafi’s time were considered women of ill repute, literally tarnished by Gaddafi’s hands.

While this attitude has been entrenched in the Libyan cultural mindset, it is currently undergoing seismic shifts. As a result of the February 17, 2011 revolution, women have started participating in public life at unprecedented levels. For some members of Libyan society, these changes have been difficult to accept. Nevertheless, Libya’s newly empowered women seem undeterred and determined to protect their new few found public roles.

In Libyan society, it was once implicitly understood that women holding positions in the Gaddafi government or pubic positions in general had been chosen not for their ostensible bureaucratic qualifications but, more often than not, as an expression of the “brother leader’s” personal interests, tastes, and worse. Libya’s traditionally patriarchal society did not easily allow women to be objects of public scrutiny, especially as decreed by the arbitrary rules of a silently hated dictator.

Gaddafi’s infamous female bodyguards, Benghazi’s female mayor, Huda Ben Amir (better known as Huda the Executioner), and the ubiquitous Revolutionary Committees (which were known to recruit young women and girls to satisfy Gaddafi’s perverse predilections) are a few of examples of female public positions abhorred by the average Libyan.

In order to avoid these negative associations and protect themselves, women often willingly took a backseat to men and refrained from participating in political – or any other public – activities. While this may have preserved women’s reputation, it also created a culture where women’s social roles tended to be restricted mainly to the household. In cases where women ventured outside the home, they were often limited to traditionally acceptable posts with little public exposure or decision-making ability. Their involvement in society remained socially acceptable as long as they stayed away from the limelight and did not seek public attention.

The revolution of February 17 would see a quick and decisive change in this attitude as women, out of necessity, became active, productive, and respected members of a national movement. No longer would their political activity carry Gaddafi’s imprimatur.

This summer marked a turning point in Libya’s swift evolution from dictatorship to democracy. It was doubly special for Libyan women, who made their voices heard and took their role in building the new Libya very seriously. Women’s new political roles extended from and even surpassed the contributions made during the revolution. They not only helped in their country’s rebirth, but also took on a new identity as collaborative members in Libya’s public sphere. [Continue reading…]

International Crisis Group: The violent death of the U.S. ambassador and three of his colleagues is a stark reminder of the challenges Libya still faces and should serve as a wake-up call for the authorities to urgently fill the security vacuum.

Divided We Stand: Libya’s Enduring Conflicts, the latest International Crisis Group report, warns that although Libya often is hailed as one of the more encouraging Arab uprisings, recovering faster than expected, it is also a country of regions and localities pulling in different directions, beset by intercommunal strife and where well-armed groups freely roam.

“Because the country lacks a fully functioning state, effective army or professional police, local actors have stepped in to provide safety, mediate disputes and impose ceasefires”, says William Lawrence, Crisis Group’s North Africa Project Director. “But ultimately, these actors cannot take on the state’s role in implementing ceasefires and ensuring conditions of peace. Truces remain fragile, and local conflicts are left frozen or fragile rather than truly resolved”.

Qadhafi’s longstanding divide-and-rule strategy set communities against one another, each vying for a share of resources and the regime’s favour. Some towns grew wealthy thanks to connections with the ruling elite; others suffered badly. Meanwhile, the security apparatus at once fomented, manipulated and managed intercommunal conflicts.

Once the lid was removed, there was every reason to fear a free-for-all, as the myriad of armed groups that proliferated during the rebellion sought material advantage, political influence or, more simply, revenge. This was all the more so given the security vacuum produced by the regime’s precipitous fall.

Proper management of the country’s many local disputes will require significant reform of both military and civilian aspects of conflict resolution, notably better coordination between local notables and the government and better coordination among the Libyan Shield Forces, the army and the groups that make up the border guard. It also demands bottom-up reform of the army and police.

The challenge will be to do this even as the newly elected General National Congress and future constitutional drafting committee are focused on establishing the legislative foundations of a new state.

“Until now, central authorities have acted chiefly as bystanders, in effect subcontracting security to largely autonomous armed groups”, says Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program Director. “This is not sustainable. The new government needs to take concrete steps to reform its security forces and establish structures of a functioning state. Anything less will perpetuate what already is in place: local disputes occurring in a fragmented and heavily armed landscape, with the ever-present risk of escalation”.

Robin Wright knew Chris Stevens for many years: A week before his murder in Benghazi, we exchanged e-mails about my plans to visit Libya in a few weeks. A State Department travel warning last month cited increasing assassinations, car bombs and gunmen abducting foreigners. Clashes among militias “can erupt at any time or any place in the country,” it cautioned.

Yet Chris saw the potential over the peril. He was not among those declaring that the Arab Spring had only made the region worse. Quite the reverse. He understood that the Middle East is moving into the second phase of its traumatic transition as Arabs vie to define a new order.

So as the United States deployed gunships and drones this past week to track his killers, I started thinking about what Chris would have wanted the United States to do — about his death, the latest turmoil and in the years ahead. I suspect his message would have been: Waver not.

But he was less an advocate of U.S. influence than of U.S. enabling. Two days after his murder, Chris was supposed to inaugurate the first “American Space” in Libya. That’s why he went to Benghazi. The center would offer a library, computers with free Internet access, language classes and films.

In prepared remarks he never got to give, Chris was going to say, “An American Space is not part of the American Embassy. It is owned, operated, and staffed by our Libyan partners, while the United States provides materials, equipment, and speakers. An American Space is a living example of the kind of partnership between our two countries which we hope to inspire.”

In this fragile phase, as Libyans and other Arabs reclaim control of their lives from autocrats and colonial rule, Chris was pressing Washington to let the newly empowered take the lead.

He was famous for his “pleasant silences,” Feltman said. “He would sit there as if he had all the time in the world. Yet it was comfortable enough in ways that the interlocutor started talking more.”

After a brief visit to Benghazi in August 2011, Feltman went to say farewell to Ali Tarhouni, the NTC’s minister of oil and finance. Chris suggested that they all “hang out” a bit. During one of Chris’s silences, Tarhouni began to outline the rebels’ military plan for the takeover of Tripoli. Residents in several neighborhoods were going to rise up simultaneously, then militias from other areas would move into the capital. The NTC wanted Tripolitanians to feel ownership, not as if armed gangs from rival provinces were moving in. It all played out the next day, and Gaddafi fled the capital.

Two days after Chris died, President Obama vowed: “We are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice. . . . No act of terror will go unpunished.”

But Chris would almost certainly have urged his bosses to hold off on extraterritorial intervention.

The Libya Herald reports: Ansar Al-Sharia, the militant group believed to be behind Tuesday’s fatal attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, is to be disbanded, by force if necessary, a reliable source close to Prime Minister-elect Mustafa Abushagur has told the Libya Herald.

“We are negotiating to dismantle it,” the source said. “We don’t want bloodshed but if they do not agree we will have to use force.”

This morning, the group’s Benghazi headquarters are closed and there is no visible sign of activity.

The army had previously put out its own statement saying the group was to be disbanded, but this was subsequently removed. The announcement had been posted on the army’s Facebook page, and it is suspected the move was deemed premature given no official word has been given from the government on the matter.

Yesterday, officials said that four men had been arrested in Benghazi in connection with the murders, all of them reportedly members of Ansar Al-Sharia. [Continue reading…]

Mahmoud Elbarasi writes: The murder of Ambassador Stevens will forever be a stain on the annals of post-Qaddafi Libyan history. For the first time in my life, I can not pass on a Libyan tragedy of this magnitude directly to the “brother leader”. Libya is our responsibility now.

In taking this responsibility, it is imperative that we strive towards intellectual honesty and that we preserve the goals of the revolution.

Since the revolution was an attack on fascism, it might follow that any kind of authoritarianism would not be tolerated. This has not been the case. In the weeks leading up to the ambassador’s death we saw over and over again the forced Talibanesque fascist destruction of artworks, books and grave sites (my own grandfather’s headstone was destroyed outside of Magroun).

The perpetrators of these crimes went through no democratic process to obtain legitimate destruction permits (if such a thing even exists); instead, they chose to walk into any building they found offensive and simply destroyed what they pleased.

Weeks later, this same mentality was deadly, with the American consulate burned. A great friend of Libya who fought with us against Qaddafi was murdered in cold blood. The ringleaders of this mentality will use any excuse to incite hatred and violence in their quest for power. In this case, an obscure, low-rent, d-list film did the trick. While the destroyers of Libyan cultural heritage walk freely among us, an American who went out of his way to help rid us of the tyrant lies dead.

Take away the haughty pseudo-religious declarations and language, the self-appointed “theological rights”, and these men are nothing more than the old regime in new clothes. It is time to call a spade a spade. We are dealing with fascists. Joseph Stalin was a fascist and an atheist; Osama bin Laden was a fascist and a Muslim. It is like cancer: it can infect and overtake every walk of life.

These are power-hungry bullies, not enlightened spiritual men. Muammar Qaddafi dressed up and played “intellectual” or “poet” or “revolutionary”, but in the end he was none of these things. He was a fascist. He was in it for the money and the might. Any man who attempts to dominate by force another man’s mind or body is the same, be it in a general’s uniform or in religious robes.

Ma’an news agency reports: Palestinian negotiators on Thursday remembered US ambassador Christopher Stevens as fair-minded and described his death in Libya as a major loss for American foreign policy.

Stevens, who was killed with three colleagues late Tuesday in an attack on US institutions in Benghazi, served a decade earlier as a political officer at the US consulate in Jerusalem.

“It’s just tragic,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO leader and veteran negotiator with Israel. “It’s very sad. I thought he was a person who was not just intelligent but also caring.”

As a mediator, the Arabic-speaking envoy “understood the Palestinian situation well. He was very understanding and he listened; he didn’t repeat talking points,” Ashrawi said in an interview.

“He could have made a big difference in peoples’ lives and, really, to America’s standing and credibility. His loss is a loss not only to US foreign policy but also to its standing with other states.”

Stevens and three other Americans died after gunmen attacked the US consulate and a safe house refuge in the eastern city of Benghazi on Tuesday night. The attackers were part of a mob blaming America for a film they said insulted the prophet Mohammad.

Demonstrators later attacked the US embassies in Yemen and Egypt in protests against the film, and American warships were moved closer to Libya.

Senior PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat blasted Stevens’ murder as an “ugly act of terror.”

“He was a really close friend of the family, and I am really shocked,” Erekat told Ma’an. “He was murdered in a very ugly act of terror, and it’s so despicable.”

Erekat said he had personally communicated to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the Palestinian people’s condolences.

“Such a good man, such a great loss. His heart was in the peace process, and I’m sure his heart was also in the building of Libya,” Erekat said.

Hisham Matar writes: Were the attacks on the United States Consulate in Benghazi, which killed the American Ambassador and three other diplomats, motivated by the film that the assailants, and many news networks, claim was their motive? Was it really religious outrage that made a few young men lose their heads and commit murder? Have any of the men who attacked the consulate actually seen the film? I do not know one Libyan who has, despite being in close contact with friends and relatives in Benghazi. And the attack was not preceded by vocal outrage toward the film. Libyan Internet sites and Facebook pages were not suddenly busy with chatter about it.

The film is offensive. It appears that it was made, rather clumsily, with the deliberate intention to offend. And if what happened yesterday was not, as I suspect, motivated by popular outrage, that outrage has now, as it were, caught up with the event. So, some might say, the fact that the attack might have been motivated by different intentions than those stated no longer matters. I don’t think so. It is important to see the incident for what it most likely was.

No specific group claimed responsibility for the attack, which was well orchestrated and involved heavy weapons. It is thought to be the work of the same Salafi, ultra-religious groups who have perpetrated similar assaults in Benghazi. They are religious, authoritarian groups who justify their actions through very selective, corrupt, and ultimately self-serving interpretations of Islam. Under Qaddafi, they kept quiet. In the early days of the revolution some of them claimed that fighting Qaddafi was un-Islamic and conveniently issued a fatwa demanding full obedience to the ruler. This is Libya’s extreme right. And, while much is still uncertain, Tuesday’s attack appears to have been their attempt to escalate a strategy they have employed ever since the Libyan revolution overthrew Colonel Qaddafi’s dictatorship. They see in these days, in which the new Libya and its young institutions are still fragile, an opportunity to grab power. They want to exploit the impatient resentments of young people in particular in order to disrupt progress and the development of democratic institutions.

Even though they appear to be well funded from abroad and capable of ruthless acts of violence against Libyans and foreigners, these groups have so far failed to gain widespread support. In fact, the opposite: their actions have alienated most Libyans.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was a popular figure in Libya, and nowhere more than in Benghazi. Friends and relatives there tell me that the city is mournful. There have been spontaneous demonstrations denouncing the attack. Popular Libyan Web sites are full of condemnations of those who carried out the assault. And there was a general air of despondency in the city Wednesday night. The streets were not as crowded and bustling as usual. There is a deep and palpable sense that Benghazi, the proud birthplace of the revolution, has failed to protect a highly regarded guest. There is outrage that Tripoli is yet to send government officials to Benghazi to condemn the attacks, instigate the necessary investigations and visit the Libyan members of the consulate staff who were wounded in the attack. There is anger, too, toward the government’s failure to protect hospitals, courtrooms, and other embassies that have recently suffered similar attacks in Benghazi. The city seems to have been left at the mercy of fanatics. And many fear that it will now become isolated. In fact, several American and European delegates and N.G.O. personnel have cancelled trips they had planned to make to Benghazi. [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports: U.S. officials say the Pentagon is moving two warships to the Libyan coast, in the aftermath of the attack in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three others.

Officials say one destroyer, the USS Laboon, moved to a position off the coast Wednesday, and the USS McFaul is en route and should be stationed off the coast within days. The officials say the ships, which carry Tomahawk missiles, do not have a specific mission. But they give commanders flexibility to respond to any mission ordered by the president.

The destroyers have crews totaling about 300. There have been four destroyers in the Mediterranean for some time. These moves will increase that to five.

I guess this is the obligatory show of force that is inevitable after an event such as this. Even so, it seems reasonable to ask: if the presence of U.S. warships off the coast of Libya now serves a useful purpose, what difference would it have made had these ships already been in position two days ago? Almost certainly, none.

Quilliam, a counter-extremism think tank in London with strong ties to Libya, issued the following press release this afternoon:

The military assault against the US Consulate in Benghazi should not be seen as part of a protest against a low budget film which was insulting Islam – there were just a few peaceful protesters present at the event. Indeed, there have been no other demonstrations regarding this film in Libya.

We at Quilliam believe the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was a well planned terrorist attack that would have occurred regardless of the demonstration, to serve another purpose. According to information obtained by Quilliam – from foreign sources and from within Benghazi – we have reason to believe that the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi came to avenge the death of Abu Yaya al-Libi, al-Qaeda’s second in command killed a few months ago.

The reasons for this are as follows:

• 24 hours before this attack, none other than the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released a video on Jihadist forums to mark the anniversary of 9/11. In this video, Zawahiri acknowledged the death of his second in command Abu Yahya and urged Libyans to avenge his killing.
• According to our sources, the attack was the work of roughly 20 militants, prepared for a military assault – it is rare that an RPG7 is present at a peaceful protest.
• According to our sources, the attack against the Consulate had two waves. The first attack led to US officials being evacuated from the consulate by Libyan security forces, only for the second wave to be launched against US officials after they were kept in a secure location.

The weak security environment in Libya including in Benghazi and the failure of the government to project its power outside of the capital have been used as a cover for the attack.

The failure to rebuild the defence and security sector, in an accountable, professional and responsible manner will only further the likelihood of such attacks in the future. Attacks in Benghazi are not new – the Red Cross has been attacked multiple times in previous months, as have the US consulate and also the UK Ambassador, and such security lapses encourage attacks. The International Community must take the challenge of not allowing extremist elements to hijack the Arab Uprisings very seriously, by renewing their focus on civic and governance responses to check the efforts of Islamist extremists attempting to exploit the inevitable security vacuum.

Noman Benotman, President of Quilliam says:

“These are acts committed by uncontrollable jihadist groups. We hope Libya will seize this opportunity to revive its policy of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Re-integration (DDR) in order to facilitate an end to the spread of such attacks, with the help of the International Community. We hope that the International Community, including NATO member states and especially the US, will continue their excellent work in Libya which began with the overthrow of the dictator Gaddafi after 42 years in power.”

ABC News reports: U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed when Libyan militants stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi Tuesday night.

Stevens, 52, died as 20 gun-wielding attackers descended on the U.S. consulate, angry about an American-made movie that depicted Prophet Mohammad, the founding prophet of Islam, as a fraud and a womanizer. The attackers fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at the consulate, Libya’s Deputy Interior Minister Wanis al-Sharif told a news conference in Benghazi.

Nearly a dozen Americans were inside the consulate at the time, guarded only by Libyan security. For nearly 20 minutes the Libyan guards exchanged fire with the attackers, who hurled a firebomb inside.

The militants burned down at least one building in the attack. It’s not clear whether Stevens was killed by smoke inhalation or was in a car, which may have been hit by a mortar, as he tried to escape.

Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith died from smoke inhalation during the attack.

The Libya Herald reports: There are conflicting accounts of what happened in Benghazi. One of the demonstrators told the Libya Herald that the protest was entirely peaceful until the police and local security forces tried to end it by firing into the air. That angered the protestors who then turned on the police, the demonstrator claimed. One of them, he said, then went to his car, got out a rocket propelled grenade launcher and fired at a police vehicle. However, he missed and the RPG hit the building on Venezia Street instead.

Other witnesses give a very different account. One, a Benghazi bank official who did not want to be named, told the Libya Herald that the protestors were all Salafists who had turned up to the building intent on causing maximum damage, bringing guns and RPGs with them. He claimed members of the Islamist militia Ansar Al-Sharia were among them. He said that fierce clashes between them and security forces lasted for five hours. He confirmed that the protestors had entered into the building.

According to him, the police guarding the office had allowed the protestors into the consulate. They then forced those inside to leave before trying to set the building on fire.

The Guardian reports: One witness told the Guardian on Wednesday that a mob fired at least one rocket at the US consulate building in Benghazi and then stormed it, setting everything ablaze. “I was there about an hour ago. The place (US consulate) is totally destroyed, the whole building is on fire,” said Mohammed El Kish, a former press officer with the National Transitional Council, which handed power to an elected parliament last month. He added: “They stole a lot of things.”

Kish, who is from Benghazi, blamed the attack on hardline jihadists. He said locals in Benghazi were upset by the activities of Islamist groups and would revolt against them. He also said the US consulate was not well protected, unlike the fortified US embassy in the capital, Tripoli. “It wasn’t that much heavily guarded. In Tripoli the embassy is heavily guarded.”

The ambassador’s killing follows an attack in June on the UK ambassador to Libya, Dominic Asquith. Two British bodyguards were injured after a rocket was fired at Asquith’s convoy in Benghazi, hitting his security escort. There have been similar attacks in Benghazi on the Red Cross and the UN. It is not clear why the US ambassador had returned to Benghazi at a time of security concerns.

George Grant, Deputy Editor of the Libya Herald, writes: Many outsiders looking at events in Libya from afar are probably not fully aware of the powerful significance of the recent desecration of Sufi shrines and the dangerous truth that it exposed.

Perhaps more than any other event since the end of last year’s revolution, the attacks have encapsulated the biggest challenge now confronting post-Qaddafi Libya.

That challenge is for Libya’s democratically-elected authorities to achieve a monopoly on the use of force. This is the bedrock of any government’s power, without which the social contract between government and governed cannot be built.

Over a period of four days, from 23-26 August, the distance Libya’s government needs to travel before attaining that monopoly was laid bare.

On Thursday, one of Libya’s most important Sufi shrines, that of the Sidi Abdul-Salam Al-Asmar Al-Fituri in Zliten, a town some 150 kilometres east of Tripoli, was systematically targeted following tribal clashes there that left at least three dead.

On Saturday, another mausoleum, that of Sheikh Ahmed Al-Zarruq, was targeted in nearby Misrata, the same day that the Al-Sha’ab shrine in Tripoli was also hit.

This latter attack in the Libyan capital was the most brazen of all. Following the initial strike in the early hours of Saturday morning, the perpetrators returned later in the day with an automatic digger to continue the task over a period of some 48 hours.

Those responsible for the attacks were Salafists, puritanical Muslims who are closely associated with the Wahabbi form of Islam propagated by Saudi Arabia. The sites are revered by Sufis, whose practice of Islam is abhorred by Salafists. The latter believe that any veneration of human beings or physical objects constitutes idolatry.

What was so disturbing about this affair was not the attacks themselves but rather the manner of the government’s response.

In a fragile, transitional environment such as exists in Libya, attacks by opportunists are to be expected. But whilst failing to prevent a hit-and-run strike is one thing, standing idly by whilst the systematic and illegal destruction of an important religious building takes place over two days, in one of the most genteel parts of your capital city, is quite another.

In truth, the demolition of the shrines could not have come at a worse time for Libya’s new rulers.

The interim government, which took power on 22 November last year, is to all intents and purposes the lamest of lame ducks. Not only was it weak anyway, both by virtue of its limited mandate (it was not democratically elected) and by virtue of the practical realities imposed upon it (a weak army, fractured economy, shattered infrastructure and so forth), but it also has at most ten days before its term in office is scheduled to end.

As for the new National Congress, it only took power on 9 August 2012 and is still finding its feet. At the time of the attacks, Congressmen were still wrangling over the terms of their internal procedures and by-laws, and it is in any event only a legislative, not an executive body.

That, however, does not constitute a legitimate excuse. Back in June, the government successfully mobilised 3,000 men to retake control of Tripoli international airport in just a few hours, after it had been seized by an errant brigade armed with heavy machine guns and a tank.

Here, all that was required was for the government to put a stop to a demolition job by two-dozen men and a digger.

Unfortunately, what is now becoming clear is that short of rolling up their shirt-sleeves, dusting off their Kalashnikovs and heading down there personally, Libya’s government ministers could no more have put a stop to the destruction than could you or I.

The reason for this is now increasingly clear: the government had quite simply lost control. The body tasked with maintaining internal security in Libya, the notionally Interior Ministry-controlled Supreme Security Committee, had either refused point-blank to stop the attacks, or else had been complicit in authorising them in the first place.

This body of 100,000 former revolutionaries, which likes to call itself the ‘guardian of the revolution’, had not so much become a law unto itself as it had become the law. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Libya’s newly elected congress held an emergency session on Sunday about the destruction over the weekend of two of the country’s most revered Sufi shrines by suspected religious extremists, who some lawmakers allege may have undertaken their actions in collusion with security officials.

The brazen attacks in two cities underscore the shaky nature of the emerging democracy in Libya, where elected officials have little sway over security forces. The destruction has raised fears that conservative religious groups—whose candidates were soundly beaten in the country’s July election—may attempt to sabotage Libya’s transition to a secular, modern state.

At sunrise on Saturday, Libyan adherents of the rigid Salafi school of Islam brought bulldozers into the center of Tripoli and flattened the expansive, centuries-old Sidi Al-Sha’ab shrine. Uniformed members of at least two separate government security divisions that answer to the Interior Ministry barricaded the busy seafront road where the religious complex was located and allowed the daylong demolition to continue, according to witnesses.

That destruction followed vandalism Friday night at Libya’s most revered Sufi mosque in Zlitan, west of the capital, and the burning of an adjoining library that housed hundreds of theological treatises dedicated to the mystical branch of Islam that historically has been practiced across much of North Africa.

Mohamed Almagariaf, head of Libya’s new congress, denounced the violence as crimes against Islam, and demanded answers from the ministers of interior and defense as to why the buildings hadn’t been protected by the forces under their command.

“These kinds of actions are unacceptable and condemned by our religion,” Mr. Magariaf said in a televised statement. “What is truly regrettable and suspicious is that some of those who took part in these destruction activities are supposed to be of the security forces.”

On Sunday evening, Interior Minister Fawzi Abdel A’al announced his resignation in an interview with Arabic news station Al Jazeera, saying he rejected the criticism leveled by lawmakers against his security forces. Mr. A’al told the network that his forces have done an excellent job keeping the nation safe from threats.

No one from the Interior Ministry appeared at Sunday’s closed session of congress, despite demands from Mr. Magariaf for their attendance and a chorus of outraged speeches from numerous lawmakers, some of whom compared the weekend destruction to the desecration by the Taliban of Afghanistan’s giant Buddha statues. An official from the Defense Ministry appeared, but it wasn’t immediately clear what information he provided to the lawmakers.

Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagour said the defense and interior ministers failed to obey his order to protect the shrines. He said those who were responsible for the destruction “would be held accountable.”

It remained unclear on Sunday whether an official investigation had been opened into the violence. [Continue reading…]

Foreign Policy reports: In a ceremony in Tripoli, Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) handed over power to the newly elected 200-member general national congress in the first peaceful transfer of power in Libya’s modern history. The NTC took the reins 10 months ago after the ouster and death of Muammar al-Qaddafi. The body has now been dissolved. NTC head Mustafa Abdul Jalil acknowledged the NTC’s inability to restore security in Libya, as fighting continues between militia groups, but noted that the body ruled in “exceptional times.” Violence has particularly increased over the past week, including a car bomb near the military police offices in Tripoli, an explosion at the empty former military intelligence offices in Benghazi, and an attack on a Red Cross compound. Of the 200 seats in the congress, 120 are held by independents, while 39 of the 80 seats available to parties went to wartime opposition Prime Minister Mahmoud Jabrili’s National Forces Alliance. The political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Justice and Building Party, has 17 seats. The new assembly held its first meeting directly after the ceremony. Its first task is to select a prime minister, who will appoint a cabinet. The congress will have legislative powers, but it is uncertain if it will choose a 60-member panel that will draft a new constitution, or if the panel will be directly elected.

Sarah Elmesallati

Libya Herald reports: A fierce row broke out in the National Congress this morning, Thursday, after one congressman walked out of the handover ceremony because the young woman hosting the event was not wearing a headscarf.

The controversy deepened further when Mustafa Abdul Jalil, in one of his final acts as NTC Chairman, ordered Sarah Elmesallati to leave the stage midway through her presentation.

“I had finished the welcoming section of my presentation, and as I was walking back onto the stage to announce the national anthem someone emerged from the middle of where the congressmen were sitting and said: “Cover your head! Cover your head!”, Elmesallati told the Libya Herald.

When Elmesallati ignored his demand, Salah Baadi, an independent congressman from Misrata and prominent Islamist, walked out of the handover ceremony in protest.

“After that, an assistant of Jalil came up to me and said ‘please, I’m asking you as a daughter, can you please stop’. I begged him to let me continue, but when I walked back on stage, Jalil caught my eye, pointed at me, and signalled for me to go away, so I did”.

In what would appear to have been an indirect reference to the event, Jalil then used his speech to emphasise the importance of freedom of expression in Libya whilst respecting its Muslim traditions.

The remainder of the ceremony was hosted by a young man, whose presentation passed off without incident.

The spat provoked a fierce reaction amongst both congressmen and others in attendance at the event, as well as a debate about the appropriate extent of freedom of expression in the new Libya.

“Everybody around me condemned this behavior”, said Mukhtar Al-Atrash, an independent candidate from Khoms, in reference to Baadi’s protest. “But you cannot control people. This is a personal taste; it’s an ugly taste, but a personal one.

“I don’t condemn Jalil, however. I think he did this to keep things in order. He didn’t want the disruption”.

Others were less sympathetic to the actions of the NTC chairman. “That’s yet another historic occasion he’s managed to ruin”, said Huda Abu Zaid, a freelance Libyan journalist living in Tripoli. “We were all furious”.

Elmesallati said she was shocked by the incident, but insisted that she would not hold it against Jalil. “He did a lot for this country so I have to forgive him for this; that’s why.

“As for the congressman, I want to speak to him personally about this if I get the chance”.

At Open Democracy, Alison Pargeter writes: The result of Libya’s legislative elections on 7 July 2012, held just short of nine months after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in October 2011, was hailed by many media outlets and policymakers as a victory for secularism in the country and the region. The headline figure – thirty-nine seats in the “national general congress” won by the National Forces Alliance (a broad-based liberal coalition), against seventeen by the Justice & Construction Party (Libya’s version of the Muslim Brotherhood) – was read with near-jubilation as evidence that the local Islamists had failed to replicate the success of their counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia, and that the “Islamist axis” unleashed by the Arab spring of 2011 had been punctured.

A closer look, though, suggests that the mix of joy and relief was misplaced. For if the Libyan Brotherhood and the other Islamist parties that contested the elections did not achieve the victory they had hoped for, the notion that the elections were a triumph for secularism is misplaced.

The most basic argument for suspending judgment about the result is that a complete picture has yet to emerge. This is because of the structure of the country’s election law, which sought to ensure that no single party could gain a ruling majority: only eighty of the 200 seats in the congress were reserved for political parties, with the remaining 120 seats allocated to individual candidates. Both the National Forces Alliance (NFA) and the Justice & Construction Party (JCP) are trying to woo these individual seat-holders to their side, but the latter are giving few signals of their intention and it is not certain that they will choose to ally themselves with either side.

This may begin to become clearer on 8 August, when the congress holds its first meeting. This session will be largely ceremonial, its purpose being to allow the existing authority – the National Transitional Council (NTC) – formally to transfer power to the new body. But the congress’s next task will be to vote for the head of the congress (the equivalent of speaker) and for the prime minister. Only then will a true inkling of the real orientation of Libya’s new legislative body emerge. In short: don’t dismiss the Islamists just yet. [Continue reading…]

James Traub writes: I get a lot of news about Libya from the Libya Herald, a plucky English-language newspaper which started up earlier this year. One of my favorite leads, from the midst of the elections last week, read, “Though deploring the abduction of Libya’s Olympic committee president, the British foreign secretary William Hague has hailed the progress that Libya has made since the revolution as ‘inspiring.'”

That’s Libya in a nutshell: Baby steps towards democracy against a backdrop of vigilante justice. Both those who advocated the NATO bombing campaign which led to the overthrow of Muammar al-Qaddafi, and those who opposed it, can now find grounds for vindication. It’s early days, and no one can foretell Libya’s future. But the surprisingly solid victory last week of a coalition led by Mahmoud Jibril, a moderate, American-educated businessman, has been enthralling for Libyans, and deeply encouraging to the anxious Westerners who have been monitoring the process.

The common refrain among critics of the NATO campaign was, “We don’t know who they are.” Islamists figured prominently in the Libyan militias; Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a former leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, led rebel forces in Tripoli. But now we do know who they are. Jibril’s National Forces Alliance roundly defeated the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction Party, taking almost six times as many votes, for example, in Benghazi, a Brotherhood stronghold. Belhaj’s al-Watan Party was routed in Tripoli. (The outcome may change as independent candidates choose to affiliate themselves with various parties.)

There are many explanations for the Islamists’ poor performance. The National Democratic Institute, a democracy promotion group, conducted focus groups in Libya this spring in which, according to Carlo Binda, the country director, “people almost universally said that anyone using Islam as a political device can’t be trusted” — because all Libyans profess Islam. Diederick Vandewalle, a Libya scholar who has been in the country during the elections, says that “the last thing anyone wants is a powerful leader who is going to be a reincarnation of Qaddafi.” Libyans, that is, have had it with ideology. After 42 years of planned chaos, Libyans just want a normal country.

A secondary fear among critics of the air campaign was that Libya, long held together by authoritarian rule, will break up along the east-west axis that defined the rebellion against Qaddafi. A group called the Cyrenaica Transitional Council (CTC), based in Benghazi, had been demanding autonomy for the east. But after the election, Jibril pointedly praised the federalists as “patriots,” and invited them to join the coalition he is seeking to assemble. The CTC’s leaders have responded warmly, and have spoken of dissolving their organization. The group may also have noticed that its demonstrations provoked yet larger counter-demonstrations in Benghazi and Tripoli. Libyans, it seems, want to be Libyans. [Continue reading…]