Libya: Myths That Feel Good
14th December 2015
ISIL (al Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant) is taking advantage of the fact that most Libyan militias now mainly operate as local defense forces and don’t really want to fight. This means the greatly outnumbered ISIL forces don’t have to worry too much about facing a larger force in battle. On the plus side this provides an additional incentive for the two rival governments to unite. The UN appears to have used this and many other pressing issues (like running out of oil money and subsequent shortages of everything) to get the two governments to sign a peace and unification deal by the end of the year. Meanwhile ISIL is making the most of the current situation by expanding its control of Sirte and trying to expand east into territory controlled by the Tobruk government. This push is facing resistance, including air strikes by the handful of Libyan Air Force warplanes the Tobruk government has operational. ISIL is currently trying to reach the oil export port of Ajdabiya. There are already some ISIL forces fighting in Ajdabiya but reinforcements are needed but the coast road between Ajdabiya and Sirte has lots of hostile gunmen blocking it. In fact the fighting throughout Libya is fairly low key, causing fewer than a thousand casualties (dead and wounded) a month. People are pretty much fed up with all the fighting since 2011.