Anis Mili/Reuters - A Libyan girl campaigns for the Justice and Construction Party, the political arm of the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood, in Tripoli, June 28, 2012.
Some came out of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which actively opposed Gaddafi’s government and many of whose members fought in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban. Now middle-aged, they are mellower than they once were, and they talk of building coalitions and promoting women’s rights.
One of the most well known of that group is Abdulhakim Belhadj, 46, the former head of Tripoli’s post-revolution military council, who is running for a congressional seat.
Deadly Taliban attack at Bagram Airfield undescores complexity of trying to negotiate peace deal.
As Erdogan’s opponents shift their tactics, the prime minister says he wants to expand police powers.
Suicide bombers strike Shiite mosque in Iraqi capital; blast at funeral in northwestern Pakistan kills 29.
As the United States seeks to restart peace talks, Israeli ministers disagree on whether the idea is dead or alive.
In a concession to Russia, Obama and European leaders do not call for Bashar al-Assad to step down.
As a member of the LIFG, he fought in Afghanistan, and he has accused the CIA of torturing him after his arrest in 2004. He was later transferred back to Gaddafi’s Libya.
Belhadj is backed by a new party called al-Watan, or the Nation, which he describes as “a nationalist party . . . not built on an Islamic ideology.”
“We believe in a modern state that is built on civil society and can be part of this international community,” he said. “It is one world, and we are part of it.”
Abdul Hakim al-Hasadi, another former LIFG member, is considering a run for office in the future. He spent five years in Afghanistan and denies ever fighting alongside the Taliban, in contrast with earlier statements he had made to the media.
He says his ideology has evolved.
“In the uprising, we had to use force,” Hasadi said. “Now, after the revolution has succeeded, we have to move to rebuilding.”
Such rhetoric is meant to appeal to Libyans who are weary of violence and to reassure Western powers that are nervous about Islamist ideologies promoted with guns.
Hasadi said he has had to reconcile himself to the fact that the West he once vilified helped bring down Gaddafi. “Libyans will never forget what happened with America, France, and so on — they had a big role to play,” he said.
But the violence has not entirely ended. Militant Islamist groups are suspected in recent attacks on Western diplomatic targets — including the U.S. Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi — and on a women’s salon, a women’s clothing store and a girls school in eastern Libya, as well as the Tunisian Embassy in Tripoli.
Like many brigades formed during the revolution, they are well-armed. But their numbers are thought to be small. Although they could try to disrupt elections, analysts say, there is no evidence linking them with global terrorism networks such as al-Qaeda.
“These are amateur jihadis,” said Noman Benotman, a senior analyst at the London-based Quilliam Foundation. “Some literally believe that democracy is the antidote to Islam, that it’s a zero-sum game, that if you believe in democracy that means you are a heretic.”
U.S. officials say Libyan authorities are handling the militants in their own way.
“The Libyans are well aware of the problem, and they are devising Libyan ways to deal with it,” said Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Fears of radicalization
There are cultural factors that make Libya less likely than other places to become a breeding ground for groups linked to al-Qaeda. Tribal leaders hold strong sway here and do not want to lose ground to religious upstarts. And Libya, with its small population and large oil wealth, does not have the poverty-stricken masses common in countries where al-Qaeda has taken root.
For radical groups, trying to find a foothold in post-Gaddafi Libya has been a game of trial and error. Militants who denounced elections as un-Islamic or tried to ban women from driving appeared to back off after their statements alienated the public.
When one group, Ansar al-Sharia, brought weapons to a demonstration in Benghazi in early June, bystanders reportedly pelted them with stones and danced to rap music to show their distaste.
A commander for Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, Mohammed Ali al-
Zahawi, said that the weapons display was meant to scare Gaddafi loyalists and that his group disapproved of the attacks on Western diplomats. But, he added, “if it had been our attack on the U.S. Consulate, we would have flattened it.”
Indeed, some fear that in the absence of a strong national police force or army, the radical groups could quickly turn more lethal.
Evan Kohlmann, founder and senior partner at Flashpoint Partners, a New York-based security consulting firm, warned that groups linked to al-Qaeda might be quietly positioning themselves in Libya, either to recruit arms and fighters for campaigns elsewhere or to plan significant attacks here.
“Jihadi movements typically breed in open, uncontrolled spaces and, right now, Libya is unfortunately a textbook example of such a space,” he said in an e-mail. “Increasingly, we are seeing videos emerge on YouTube and elsewhere on the web featuring convoys of heavily armed Libyan militants proudly parading under the black banners of al-Qaeda. . . . We can only hope that this is the exception.”
Belhadj and Hasadi said they also worry that radical groups could destabilize Libya. Both say they are trying to persuade members of the groups to renounce violence.
Hasadi said he has been preaching against violence on television. With the patient air of a man who has seen how youthful passion melts into middle-aged pragmatism, he said, “This ideology is like a fire — it eats itself. It will soon disappear.”
Aimen Areiby contributed to this report.
The Post Most: WorldMost-viewed stories, videos and galleries int he past two hours
Our Correspondents on Twitter
Loading...
Comments