The Libya connection in the May 22 Manchester concert suicide bombing and Friday's attack on Christians in Egypt has shone a light on the threat posed by militant groups that have taken advantage of lawlessness in the troubled North African nation to put down roots, recruit fighters and export militants to cause death and carnage elsewhere.
Libya, the oil-rich North African country descended into chaos after the Western intervention and parts of it have become a bastion for Daesh, giving the militants a new base even as its territory in Syria and Iraq shrinks under constant assault. At the peak of its power in Libya, Daesh controlled a 160-kilometer (100-mile) stretch of Libyan coastline and boasted between 2,000 and 5,000 fighters, many of them from Egypt and Tunisia.
It is that Libya that the alleged Manchester bomber, 22-year-old British citizen Salman Abedi, found when he and his family moved back from Britain after Libyan leader Moammer Gadhafi's ouster in 2011.
Monday's bombing left 22 dead, including an 8-year-old girl, and was claimed by Daesh. Abedi's brother Hashim has been taken into custody in Tripoli and, according to Libyan authorities, has confessed that he and Salman were Daesh members.
In Egypt, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi sent his fighter-jets to bomb militant positions in eastern Libya just hours after Daesh fighters shot dead 29 Christians on their way to a remote desert monastery. The military said the attackers were trained in Libya. Egypt also has long complained that weapons smuggled across the porous desert border with Libya have reached militants operating on its soil. It also has claimed that militants who bombed three Christian churches since December received military training in Daesh bases in Libya.
Five years after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was toppled by NATO intervention, the country has become the main jump-off point for migrants heading for Europe, and the breeding ground for militants as there has been no security or stability left in the war-torn country. In 2016, 90 per cent of migrants who made it to Italy left from Libya, but none were Libyan nationals, according to Italian Interior Ministry.
Libya has suffered from a chronic absence of security as various actors have emerged. The powerlessness of the central government has led many people to take up arms against the government. State security forces have also failed to protect the government, leaving the country unprotected and open to heavy clashes between rival militias trying to gain authority over the government and the country. Peace and political stability seems far off as no rival militias have been strong enough to put an end to the ongoing war.
Among the major militia groups, Ansar al-Sharia is a Salafist militia, formed by Mohamed al-Zahawi, who fought in Afghanistan for years, emerged in June 2012. They demand the establishment of a state ruled by Sharia in the eastern city of Benghazi. The have been fighting with Libyan army brigades and forces loyal to renegade army general Khalifa Belqasim Haftar for years. The group is set to disband, a statement from the group said late Saturday. The militia has suffered a number of setbacks in recent years, according to the international policy organization Counter Terrorism Project.
The group is now in control of Libya's eastern city of Derna, which is under siege by Haftar's forces and has been the target of airstrikes by neighboring Egypt over the past two days.
