U.S. and Allies Weigh Military Action Against ISIS in Libya

[anatta]

Worried about a growing threat from the Islamic State in Libya, the United States and its allies are increasing reconnaissance flights and intelligence collecting there and preparing for possible airstrikes and commando raids, senior American policy makers, commanders and intelligence officials said this week.


While no decision has been finalized about when the United States and its allies will formally expand action in Libya against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, administration officials indicated that it might be very soon. A decision will probably come in “weeks” but “not hours,” Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

“

It’s fair to say that we’re looking to take decisive military action against ISIL in conjunction with the political process” in Libya, General Dunford said. “The president has made clear that we have the authority to use military force.”

United States and British Special Operations teams have for months been conducting clandestine reconnaissance missions in Libya to identify militant leaders and map out their networks. Separate teams of American Special Operations forces have over the past year been trying to court allies from among a patchwork of Libyan militias that remain unreliable, unaccountable, poorly organized and divided by region and tribe.

In recent weeks, military commanders have intensified their warnings about the threat from the Islamic State in Libya, where Western officials believe the group now has about 3,000 fighters. Recruits are pouring into Libya weekly, as the journey to Iraq and Syria has become more difficult with Turkey tightening its border with Syria, intelligence officials said.

General Dunford said the United States, France, Italy and Britain are looking with urgency at how to stem the growth in the power of the Islamic State in Libya before it spreads throughout North Africa and the sub-Saharan countries. In particular, he said it was important to “put a firewall” between the Islamic State in Libya and other militant Islamic extremist groups on the African continent, while working to strengthen the ability of African militaries and governments to fight
U.S. and Allies Weigh Military Action Against ISIS in Libya

 

[anatta]

Opening a New Front Against ISIS in Libya
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/o...-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

The Pentagon is ramping up intelligence-gathering in Libya as the Obama administration draws up plans to open a third front in the war against the Islamic State. This significant escalation is being planned without a meaningful debate in Congress about the merits and risks of a military campaign that is expected to include airstrikes and raids by elite American troops.

That is deeply troubling. A new military intervention in Libya would represent a significant progression of a war that could easily spread to other countries on the continent. It is being planned as the American military burrows more deeply into battlegrounds in Syria and Iraq, where American ground troops are being asked to play an increasingly hands-on role in the fight.

Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on Friday that military officials were “looking to take decisive military action” against the Islamic State, or ISIS, in Libya, where Western officials estimate the terrorist group has roughly 3,000 fighters.

Administration officials say the campaign in Libya could begin in a matter of weeksThey anticipate it would be conducted with the help of a handful of European allies, including Britain, France and Italy. The planning is unfolding amid political chaos in Libya, which continues to reel from the aftermath of the 2011 civil war that ended with the killing of the country’s longtime dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. In recent months the United Nations has struggled to persuade two groups of Libyan officials who claim to be the country’s rightful leaders to band together. On Monday, the parliament that is recognized by the international community rejected a unity government proposal brokered by the United Nations.

The political strife and infighting among rival militias created an opening for the Islamic State in Libya in 2014. The extremist group now controls the coastal city of Surt, which lies between the country’s two largest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi. General Dunford told reporters that striking the cells of Islamic State fighters in Libya would “put a firewall” between that front and sympathizers of the group elsewhere in North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.

That is a reasonable goal. But military officials have yet to make a persuasive case that it is achievable. Even if the Pentagon and its allies were to manage to strike Islamic State targets successfully, it remains uncertain that they would have a reliable ground force to hold the terrain. There’s good reason to believe that airstrikes would create the temptation to deploy ground troops to gather intelligence and provide technical support to rebel forces as they have in Iraq and Syria.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said the Pentagon was redoubling efforts to assist local forces in Iraq and Syria.

“We’re looking for opportunities to do more, and there will be boots on the ground — I want to be clear about that — but it’s a strategic question, whether you are enabling local forces to take and hold, rather than trying to substitute for them,” he told CNBC in an interview.

 

[anatta]

^ here we go again..Mission creep in Syria ( more and more Special Forces ) and Iraq ( trainers/advisors S.Forces)

leads to "gotta do something about I.S.Libya"

Once the bombing starts the dogs of war are released.. who knows where this goes.

 

[Phantasmal]

^ here we go again..Mission creep in Syria ( more and more Special Forces ) and Iraq ( trainers/advisors S.Forces)

leads to "gotta do something about I.S.Libya"

Once the bombing starts the dogs of war are released.. who knows where this goes.

Baba Vagas says a full invasion of Europe by the Muslims. Do you believe in prophetesses?

 

[anatta]

Baba Vagas says a full invasion of Europe by the Muslims. Do you believe in prophetesses?

lol..of course not. I believe what can be explained rationally. don't you just love the hyperbole?
what? are "Muslim hoards" gonna sweep across the landscape like Genghis Khan again?

 

[cancel2 2022]

Baba Vagas says a full invasion of Europe by the Muslims. Do you believe in prophetesses?

Look at Sweden as an example, over 150,000 Muslims have arrived in the last year. The vast majority have ended up in southern Sweden and specifically cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg. So do the maths and translate that to the US, it is equivalent of nearly 5 million Muslims arriving in somewhere the size of Ohio in a year. I just don't think people in the US understand the scale of the problem because it is too remote for them.

 

[anatta]

Look at Sweden as an example, over 150,000 Muslims have arrived in the last year. The vast majority have ended up in southern Sweden and specifically cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg. So do the maths and translate that to the US, it is equivalent of nearly 5 million Muslims arriving in somewhere the size of Ohio in a year. I just don't think people in the US understand the scale of the problem because it is too remote for them.

I do.many US people do not.
And I seen the Germany problem already with so called "guest" workers ( like Turkish in the last 2 decades) sucking up welfare.

It's the hyperbole that's not helpful. Obama and Hillary were talking about 65k Syrian refugees this year,and then 100k plus next.
Then the san Bernadino shootings,and Paris happened -so I'm not sure what the current deal is.
Bu even that pales to the great migration Europe is enduring..good luck with that.

 

[NOVA]

lol..of course not. I believe what can be explained rationally. don't you just love the hyperbole?
what? are "Muslim hoards" gonna sweep across the landscape like Genghis Khan again?

13 million Muslims in Europe as of now......how many does it take to constitute a "hoard"........

 

[Irish]

I thought Libya was Obama and Hillary's crowning FP achievement. Guess not.

 

[anatta]

I thought Libya was Obama and Hillary's crowning FP achievement. Guess not.

Italy can no longer count on a key ally who helped stem the flow in the past: Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who died in 2011 after being ousted by a NATO-backed revolution.

"The EU has never wanted to take those people in," Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King's College, told Business Insider. "The only difference is that before we were paying Gaddafi, so we didn't have to deal with them."

Menon added that the EU's recent announcement that it would start cracking down on the deportation of people who do not qualify for asylum was a "clearly politically motivated" move in line with Europe's longstanding foreign policies.

In 2009, Silvio Berlusconi, then Italy's prime minister, and Gaddafi signed an agreement that Italy would pay Libya $5 billion over 25 years as a repayment for its for its occupation of Libya in the first half of the 20th century.

What Italy got out of the deal, besides strengthening its energy ties with the African country, was clear: Libya would crack down on the migrants trying to cross into Europe.

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-european-refugee-crisis-and-libya-2015-10
'The only difference': Gaddafi's ghost is hovering over the European refugee crisis

 

[anatta]

Libya: We’re About To Return to the Crime Scene
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/01/26/libya-were-about-to-return-to-the-crime-scene/

The New York Times reports that the “government” of Libya is hiding in a hotel room in Tunis:

“Officials said there was agreement that the United States and its allies needed to find ways of shoring up Libya’s new government of national accord – established just this week with help from the United Nations but stuck, as of now, in a hotel in Tunis. France, General Dunford said, will work closely with the United States Africa Command on a plan.”

Plan? What plan? Why,the plan to fuck up“liberate” Libya for the second time in four years, which is even now in the works:

“Worried about a growing threat from the Islamic State in Libya, the United States and its allies are increasing reconnaissance flights and intelligence collecting there and preparing for possible airstrikes and commando raids, senior American policy makers, commanders and intelligence officials said this week.”

Having destroyed the country in their 2011 intervention – when the US and its allies bombed the place to smithereens, funded Islamist militias, and had Ghadafi hideously murdered – the regime-changers are returning to the scene of their crime on the theory that repeating the same failed “solution” endlessly will somehow solve the problem they created in the first place.

The plan, we are told, could go into operation “soon,” which is interesting on at least two levels. To begin with, Congress hasn’t authorized US military action in Libya, and is unlikely to do so. Secondly, the idea that the “government of national accord” – voted for by exactly nobody inside Libya – has one iota of legitimacy is a joke. Indeed, Libya is suffering from an oversupply of governments at the moment, with one in Tripoli and the other in the eastern city of Tobruk: only the fools over at 405 East 42nd Street could possibly imagine the addition of a third will help matters.

And the joke is exacerbated by the fact that the UN-approved Parliament in Tobruk has rejected the “government of national unity,” as our very own Jason Ditz notes.

As I noted way back when, Libya isn’t a real country and never has been: it naturally divides into western and eastern zones, with the interior completely separate from both. It is a make-believe nation, constructed out of whole cloth by the UN after World War II and only held together because Ghadafi managed to seize power and create a dictatorship. He wasn’t a Boy Scout, but then again no one in that rough neighborhood deserves many merit badges. Now those geniuses in Washington, Paris, and London – after arming Islamist militias, one of which murdered the American ambassador – have suddenly discovered the existence of a “terrorist threat.”

So what exactly is going on in Libya since we took out Ghadafi? Think Iraq, Syria, Somalia – or, perhaps, a Mad Max movie. The “government” in the East is lorded over by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a CIA creation, who defected to the West after botching Libya’s invasion of Chad and was domiciled in Falls Church, Virginia, for years – conveniently close to CIA headquarters in Langley – waiting for his Big Comeback.
It came when Hillary Clinton’s State Department and Samantha Power teamed up with National Security honcho Susan Rice and the three of them prevailed on President Obama to approve US intervention in Libya. Hifter returned to his homeland, had his chief rival, Abdul Fattah Younis, killed, and – backed by Egypt, the Saudis, and the United Arab Emirates – seized power in the eastern province, what used to be the independent state of Cyrenaica.

The western Tripoli-centered “government,” supported by Turkey and Qatar, consists of a collection of Islamist militias and ostensible “liberals” known as “Libya Dawn.” Their biggest point of unity is opposition to Gen. Hifter, whose brutality under the Ghadafi regime has not been forgotten. They also insist on the imposition of Sharia law, which is why they’ve attracted support from groups like Ansar al-Sharia, responsible for the death of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Is it a coincidence that the so-called Islamic State has prospered in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Afghanistan? What do all these nations have in common? Yes, that’s right: these are all countries that fell victim to the regime-changers. And then, as night follows day, the dreaded Terrorist Threat arose like the desert sun.

Backed by the UN, the US and its allies insist that Libya must remain just as it was when it was created by the Western powers after World War II. Yet “Libya” has no historical basis for its existence: even its name is an invention of its Italian conquerors, imposed at the turn of the twentieth century.
Left to themselves, both the eastern and western regions would soon deal with a supposedly expanding Islamic State presence. But that isn’t permitted: the “Libyans” must follow the Western prescription of “unity” at all costs. After all, it’s easier to control one government than two: and who will make sure those lucrative oil contracts are handed out to the right Western companies?

The Times quotes Ben Fishman, “a former top National Security Council official” on North Africa affairs:

“On ISIS in Libya, we have to be more assertive. We have to increase bombing of ISIS while we are working to support the new unity government.”

In other words, we have to set the two rival governments against each other so we have a pretext to intervene in the name of the “war on terrorism.” Uncle Sam creates a problem, and then intervenes to “solve” it. That’s the story of Libya since the fall of Ghadafi. And the same can be said of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia.

The United States has no business intervening in Libya – no more than a criminal who returns to the scene of his crime to “make things right.” Unfortunately, there is as yet no means to jail the criminals responsible for the destruction of Libyan society, but the least we can hope for is that the US Congress will prevent them from repeating their crimes.

 

[FUCK THE POLICE]

Look at Sweden as an example, over 150,000 Muslims have arrived in the last year. The vast majority have ended up in southern Sweden and specifically cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg. So do the maths and translate that to the US, it is equivalent of nearly 5 million Muslims arriving in somewhere the size of Ohio in a year. I just don't think people in the US understand the scale of the problem because it is too remote for them.

New immigrants always wind up in the big cities.

 

[Irish]

Not to mention it has now been revealed that there WAS a stand down order. Plenty of our quick reaction forces simply didn't go, and were TOLD NOT TO.

That's a STAND DOWN order. Hillary/Obama simply wanted this to blow over, just let a few Americans die. Oh well, it will be better for Obama's election.

Then lie about it, sweep it under the rug, blame Romney for it, and win in 2012. Obama and his campaign is all based on a lie. Everything he's said has been a total lie.

 

[anatta]

U.S. military forces are on the ground in Libya looking for potential partners in what could soon be an expanded campaign against the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

There have been some U.S. forces in Libya trying to establish contact with forces on the ground," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters Wednesday. “Get a better sense of who the players are, who might be worthy of U.S. support and support from some of our partners going forward

Cook described the U.S. contingent as a small group, adding they were in Libya "at the concurrence of Libyan officials.”

While not the biggest fighting force in Libya, IS has been growing stronger there in recent months, cementing its hold on the city of Sirte and surrounding areas.

Growing threat in Libya

A U.S. official familiar with the intelligence recently told VOA about 500 key IS officials and fighters who left Syria and Iraq during the last several weeks of 2015 and moved to Libya in what appeared to be a calculated move.

Western officials estimate IS may now have upwards of 5,000 fighters in Libya. (ISLibya)

“This is a situation that does cause us concern, and we’re considering what our options might be going forward should that threat, ISIL, become an even bigger threat,” Cook said, using an acronym for the terror group.

Cook’s comments come just days after the top U.S. military officer warned the Islamic State in Libya posed a pressing regional threat.

“The U.S. has already shown a willingness to strike IS in Libya, killing Abu Nabil, believed to have been the top IS leader in Libya, in an airstrike this past November.

Training ground

Islamic State has long used Libya as a training ground for fighters destined for Syria and Iraq, but increasingly it has become part of the terror group’s expansion plans.

“It now is a destination,” Levantine Group security analyst Michael Horowitz said. “The local branches of ISIS have spared no efforts to promote Libya as a land for jihad.”

Like in Syria and Iraq, the terror group has taken advantage of large tracts of ungoverned spaces as well as political turmoil.

“The current fragmentation between and within rival Libyan political camps is also helping ISIS to grow by eroding trust and legitimacy in Libyan politics and politicians as a whole amongst a large swath of the Libyan population, especially the youth,” according to Jason Pack, a researcher of Middle Eastern History at Cambridge University and president of Libya-Analysis.com.

Despite the presence of U.S. special forces on the ground in Libya, the Pentagon rejected the notion of sending traditional U.S. forces, or “boots on the ground,” to Libya.

"Right now, that's not something that's under consideration," said spokesman Cook.
Pentagon: US Forces in Libya, Looking for ‘Worthy’ Partners

 

[Airstrip One]

I say let Europe burn, because it will be a painful illustration that American leftists can't easily ignore.