This week Libya’s prime minister and the a rival opposition leader agreed to hold nationwide elections in the war-torn country. A previous election attempt was delayed as territorial disputes and instability were allowing groups like ISIS to take advantage of the power vacuum. Christopher Livesay reported from inside Libya in October, 2018 with funding from the Pulitzer Center.
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Hari Sreenivasan:
This week the head of the Libyan government and the country’s opposition military leader met and agreed to hold nationwide elections in the politically torn country. A previous attempt at an election had been delayed as territorial disputes and instability across regions were allowing groups like ISIS to take advantage of the disarray.
PBS NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Christopher Livesay and videographer Alessandro Pavone reported on that instability back in October and the power vacuum that ISIS was trying to fill.
Their reporting was supported in part with funding from the Pulitzer Center.
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Christopher Livesay:
The city of Sirte. Once the crowning jewel of the Islamic State in Libya. It was part of 150 miles of ISIS-controlled coastline from 2015 to the end of 2016. Today, the city has been reduced to rubble, first in an offensive against ISIS led by Libyan security forces in 2016, then by nearly 500 precision airstrikes from the United States. Bombing largely ceased last year. Large swaths of town remain abandoned. The government has yet to clear hundreds of corpses beneath the rubble for fear of mines and unexploded ordnance. Because of that, the air is still thick with the stench of rotting bodies. Colonel Ibrahim Bin Rabaa is the commander of Libyan counter-terrorism forces in Sirte.
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Colonel Ibrahim Bin Rabaa:
My son volunteered to fight ISIS and protect Sirte. ISIS killed him. He was 24 years old.
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Christopher Livesay:
The six-month offensive eventually wiped out an estimated 2,500 ISIS combatants. But Bin Rabaa tells us sleeper cells still lurk, especially in Sirte’s desert. Though it no longer controls any territory, the spike in violence has been sharp. In 2017, ISIS managed to pull off only four attacks. So far this year, it’s more than a dozen. The most audacious was in May when ISIS gunmen stormed Libya’s election commission headquarters in Tripoli, detonated suicide vests, and killed at least 16 civilians.
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Christopher Livesay:
So ISIS is in this direction, they’re regrouping in the desert, here in the south?
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Colonel Ibrahim Bin Rabaa:
At anytime they can come in one or two people and blow themselves up. We rely on shepherds to tell us if there are any ISIS fighters passing through their pastures.
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Christopher Livesay:
So far this year in Libya there have already been more than twice the number of ISIS attacks. Is ISIS trying to regroup in order to launch attacks abroad outside of Libya as well?
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Colonel Ibrahim Bin Rabaa:
Right now they lack the ability to control any major territory in Libya. But they are doing their best to regroup and mount attacks again. Our men have proven themselves in this war with the Islamic State. But we ask and we hope for help…
