Islamic State on rise in Libya: “Syria all over again”

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2016/02/islamic-state-on-rise-in-libya-syria-all-over-again

February 7, 2016 4:41 pm By Robert Spencer 3 Comments

But…but…they’re losing!


“Islamic State on rise in Libya: ‘Syria all over again,'” by Brian Bennett and W.J. Hennigan, Chicago Tribune, February 7, 2016:

As Islamic State forces lose ground in Iraq and Syria, fighters loyal to the group have seized territory in oil-rich Libya, levying taxes at gunpoint and creating sanctuaries to launch possible attacks in North Africa and Europe, U.S. officials say.
The Pentagon has sent special operations teams to gather intelligence and launched at least one airstrike. But the White House so far has resisted calls from some senior aides to escalate the U.S. military role in another Muslim country to counter the potential threat.
Spy satellites and reconnaissance drones have shown the militants building fortifications around Sirte, on the central Mediterranean coast, and training bases for foreign fighters farther inland, the officials said.
A U.S. intelligence estimate last week concluded Islamic State has attracted more than 5,000 fighters in Libya, double the official estimate last fall, making it the extremist group’s largest and most potent affiliate outside Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State threatens to gain a “stranglehold” in Libya and “access to billions of dollars of oil revenue,” Secretary of State John Kerry said, one of several alarms the administration has raised in recent days.
He spoke at a conference last week in Rome where the U.S. and 22 other nations agreed to support the formation of a unity government in Tripoli, the capital, in an effort to restore stability and take on the militants.
Libya has had no functioning central government since the NATO bombing campaign helped a popular uprising oust ruler Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
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It has faced political chaos and a civil war ever since, with two rival governments battling for power and squabbling militias exploiting the power vacuum.
“In the absence of a true government, (militant groups) have grown unchecked,” said a U.S. defense official, not authorized to speak publicly. “It’s like Syria all over again.”
Islamic State “has a bad habit of growing in places that are ungoverned,” Tina Kaidanow, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator said last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
She cited an urgency at the White House and its allies to move quickly before the group expands beyond its current foothold, which extends about 100 miles east and west of Sirte.
“We don’t want to see the growth of (Islamic State) outpace what will be a long-term effort to build out a successful Libyan government,” she said….