ISIS is now in Libya

[rufuspaul]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world/...bya/index.html


Thanks Obama!

(CNN) -- The black flag of ISIS flies over government buildings. Police cars carry the group's insignia. The local football stadium is used for public executions. A town in Syria or Iraq? No. A city on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Libya.
Fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are now in complete control of the city of Derna, population of about 100,000, not far from the Egyptian border and just about 200 miles from the southern shores of the European Union.
The fighters are taking advantage of political chaos to rapidly expand their presence westwards along the coast, Libyan sources tell CNN.

The sources say the Derna branch of ISIS counts 800 fighters and operates half a dozen camps on the outskirts of the town, as well as larger facilities in the nearby Green Mountains, where fighters from across North Africa are being trained.
It has been bolstered by the return to Libya from Syria and Iraq of up to 300 Libyan jihadists who were part of ISIS' al Battar Brigade -- deployed at first in Deir Ezzor in Syria and then Mosul in Iraq. These fighters supported the Shura Council for the Youth of Islam in Derna, a pro-ISIS faction.
The council had been competing for superiority with another militant group, the Abu Salem Brigade, some of whose fighters' loyalties lay with al Qaeda, according to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan jihadist now involved in counter-terrorism for the Quilliam Foundation.
Al Qaeda's top envoy in Libya, Abdulbasit Azuz, left Derna after U.S. Special Forces captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah, an alleged ringleader of the Benghazi attacks in June. Azuz is now believed to be in Syria, Benotman told CNN.
Amateur video from the end of October showed a large crowd of militants affiliated with the Shura Council for the Youth of Islam chanting their allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The new ISIS wing in Derna calls itself the "Barqa" provincial division of the Islamic State, the name given to the eastern region of Libya when Islamic rule replaced the Roman Empire.
The Libyan branch of ISIS now has a tight grip on the city, controlling the courts, all aspects of administration, education, and the local radio. "Derna today looks identical to Raqqa, the ISIS headquarters town in Syria," Benotman told CNN.

[Patrick Chewing]

The bigger picture here is the repressive nature of Islam as a whole. Things like this would not happen in a modern society. There is no way that 800 militants can take over a town of 100,000. For every 1 ISIS fighter, there's 125 Libyans that can defend their homeland.

Repressive Islam is stuck in the stone age as the barbaric religion teaches its followers to submit. Therefore, it is easy to conquer and be conquered in the Islamic world. That's why ISIS controls the town. There is no self-awareness of survivability. Whatever happens in the Muslim world, whether good or bad is just the will of God.

[Dresta]

Thanks Obama you dick!

[LJJ]

This news is at least a month old.

Truth is that all the Arab spring movements are and were for the most part incited by groups that aren't IS in name only. But if you looked at the way it was reported in the media at the time, you would never know it and the Arab Spring was a movement of "liberal, democratic students" rather than a movement of mostly rabid Islamists.

[KingBeasley08]

This news is at least a month old.

Truth is that all the Arab spring movements are and were for the most part incited by groups that aren't IS in name only. But if you looked at the way it was reported in the media at the time, you would never know it and the Arab Spring was a movement of "liberal, democratic students" rather than a movement of mostly rabid Islamists.

I'll admit I was guilty of thinking that. I didn't figure out what was going on until Muslim Brotherhood took over in Egypt

[tomtucker]

Thanks Obama ? ...........wasn

[fiddy]

Libya, Nigeria, Egypt, Lebanon...

[bagelred]

ISIS is complete bullshit.

[Rodmantheman]

[KevinNYC]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/world/...bya/index.html


Thanks Obama!

From the same article

Derna has a long history of Islamist radicalism. Marginalized during the Gadhafi era, it contributed more foreign fighters per capita to al Qaeda in Iraq than any other town in the Middle East. It has also provided scores of fighters for ISIS in Syria.

So this goes back at least to the aughts. Islamist militias have existed in Libya since the mid 90s when jihadists returned from Afghanistan.

[knickballer]

From the same article



So this goes back at least to the aughts. Islamist militias have existed in Libya since the mid 90s when jihadists returned from Afghanistan.

It wasn't until the US toppled a fairly secular regime for regional standards and supported rebels with clear ties to Islamist Jihadist organizations that extremism rose significantly. But don't listen to the media as they will say the revolution from women seeking to better themselves.

[KevinNYC]

So what this sounds like to me is a local existing Libyan Jihadist militia has changed names and pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi of ISIS.

This has been going on for a while now. I think I may have been the first person on this board to talk about ISIS with this post about how Al Qaeda was declining and more and more groups were pledging allegiance to ISIS.

Actually Al Qaeda has been losing power for a while now.

Many analysts now believe that Al Qaeda under Ayman al-Zawahiri is no longer the premiere jihadi network worldwide. Zawahiri was never as popular as Bin Laden and he's having trouble keeping the group together. There's a big fracture happening in the jihadi world.

ISIS which used to be Al Qaeda in Iraq is no longer under Zawahiri's control and group after group is sided with ISIS

While there is much we don't know about the current size and operational status of AQC, there is ample evidence that the top-down command structure -- with Zawahiri's organization on top of the pyramid -- is, at a minimum, under tremendous pressure.
We can debate whether it has completely collapsed, whether it is severely damaged, whether it is still hanging on, and whether it might mount a comeback, but the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that control of al Qaeda's affiliates is slipping out of Zawahiri's hands. This weekend's disavowal of ISIS by AQC is only the most recent and explicit example.
We sometimes talk about al Qaeda and its affiliates as if this structure has a clear precedent, deep roots, and a long history of cohesion. In fact, the "affiliate program" was barely off the ground before cracks began to form. Al Qaeda in Iraq, and its leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, went off the rails almost immediately, and AQC tried -- futilely -- to rein him in through private correspondence, which was captured in Iraq and Afghanistan and later published by the U.S. government. The conflict was only resolved with Zarqawi's death in 2006.
Today, Zawahiri has indisputably lost control of AQI, now known as ISIS. In June, ISIS tried to take control of al Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al Nusra. When Zawahiri came down in support of the powerful newcomer, ISIS openly defied him, with its emir posting a video online explicitly rejecting the order to confine its activities to Iraq.

This has led fighting among jihadi groups in Syria. And now groups are having to decide who to be loyal to.

[RidonKs]

big surprise

[KevinNYC]

My post was informed by these analysts view of the dynamics of what was going on in the jihadi world.



http://www.fpri.org/geopoliticus/201...unterterrorism

[KingBeasley08]

lol if Obama was the one who started the war in Iraq, Kevin would have even spun that to a plus