LIBYA'S FEBRUARY 17TH REVOLUTION

Inspired by the downfall of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Libyan activists began establishing clandestine opposition groups in late January 2011.Footnote ² Shortly thereafter, the National Conference for the Libyan OppositionFootnote ³ (an organization of exiled opposition figures in London) galvanized nascent opposition to Muammar Qadhafi by calling for domestic and international protests against his rule on February 17. Two days before the scheduled “Day of Rage,” however, a small and peaceful protest against the arrest of well-known human rights lawyer Fathi Terbil began in Benghazi (BBC News 2011). When underway, this initially spontaneous gathering of several hundred demonstrators quickly grew in size to several thousand. It also grew in scope—to a broad denunciation of the Qadhafi government. By the evening of February 15, 2011, the Benghazi protest had devolved into violence that left dozens of protestors injured and a police station ablaze (Edwards Reference Edwards2011). Violence continued into the next day, inspiring antigovernment demonstrations in Baida and Zintan (Al Jazeera 2011). Those protests also began peacefully but later descended into violent attacks on government and state security buildings.

During the days and weeks that followed, opposition to Qadhafi dissolved into armed conflict in key cities: first in Benghazi, and then onward to Misratah and the Nafusa Mountains (west of Tripoli) (see figure 1). Given the threat of a swift and sharp escalation in hostilities—and the particular threat of civilian casualties—the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed resolution 1973 on March 17, 2011, which mandated member states and regional organizations to “take all necessary measures” to protect civilians (UNSC 2011). France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with support of Qatar and UAE, immediately enforced a no-fly zone and began military strikes against government ground forces on route to Benghazi (McGreal Reference McGreal2011). NATO later assumed responsibility for operations on March 31, 2011 (NATO 2011). After eight months of fighting between Qadhafi loyalists and a diverse set of ad hoc “revolutionary brigades”Footnote ⁴ (assisted from the air by NATO forces), major fighting came to an end on October 20, 2011, when Muammar Qadhafi was captured and killed in Sirte, near his hometownFootnote ⁵ (Malone Reference Malone2011). While his death brought an end to the armed struggle, it did not bring closure to the “revolution,” whose goal (as articulated by its young backers) was to establish a nation characterized by accountable leaders, economic development, and individual freedom (UNSMIL 2012a).

Figure 1

Map of Libya

From The World Factbook 2013–14, Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2013. The Factbook is in the public domain (visit https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html). City names are transliterated on the map while the body of the paper employs a transcription system that makes it easier for non-Arabic speakers. Reference was made to Gazetteer No. 41—Libya (June 1958)—which has become a standard reference for historians of Libya and to modern media articles in exceptional cases, where a strict transliteration from the Arabic (i.e., Trabalus for Tripoli) would have rendered names unintelligible to readers. (Color online.)

Since Qadhafi's fall, several high-profile security breaches have drawn international criticism, including the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi. Notwithstanding these incidents or the predictions by many that the General National Congress elections (July 7, 2012) would spark widespread violence, the transition process has avoided large-scale civil conflict.Footnote ⁶ Overall, the ballot was run peacefully and a government has been appointed under Prime Minister Ali Zeidan (UNSMIL 2012b). Nevertheless, the ongoing weakness of state security structures perpetuates the risk that episodic violence will continue during Libya's transition process.

ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK 1: DILEMMAS OF SECURITY?

Under Qadhafi, the military structures of the Libyan state were almost wholly subordinated to the political structures of his regime (Vandewalle Reference Vandewalle and Neto2011). That subordination of state to politics allowed the self-declared “Brother Leader” to pursue a range of coup-proofing strategies in the 1970s and 1980s, which were based around a logic of patronage (to control key military units) and neglect (to enfeeble the National Army as a whole) (ICG 2011). These two tactics of control gave rise to a state security apparatus in which the most potent elements of the National Army were led by Qadhafi's sons or close allies, while rank-and-file units were poorly resourced and, therefore, somewhat dubious in their loyalty to Qadhafi. Consequently, when structures of political control began to weaken alongside challenges to the Qadhafi regime in 2011, defections among the rank-and-file units were swift and widespread—particularly in the east, but also in Kufra, Misratah, and the western mountainous regions (ICG 2011).

As the National Army dissolved and armed resistance to Qadhafi strengthened, a vast and diverse set of nonstate actors took up arms in 2011. Given the ongoing fragility of the Libyan Army (thus renamed after the fall of Qadhafi), the state has not yet reestablished a monopoly on the use of violence in Libya, and many armed groups continue to operate throughout the country (Cole Reference Cole2012; Fitzgerald Reference Fitzgerald2012; McQuinn Reference McQuinn2012a). On occasion, there have been local clashes, driven by longstanding, communal grievances (Gumuchian Reference Gumuchian2012; ICG 2012). Note, however, there has been cross-regional variation in the causes and intensity of past incidents. There is also cross-regional variation in the risk that future clashes will escalate into large-scale violence.

In cities that experienced sustained fighting throughout 2011, such as Misratah or Zintan, the level of confrontations between “revolutionary brigades” has been comparatively low. This is expected to continue as informal cooperation arrangements among the fighting units and local communities forged during the war endure (McQuinn Reference McQuinn2012a). In 2011, fighting forces often began as micro-groups of three to five combatants. Then, over time, those small units began to align with one another and merge on the basis of existing social ties, giving rise to autonomous fighting groups (known as “revolutionary brigades”), which typically consisted of some 30 to 70 combatants. In some cases, this process of corporatization resulted in brigades that claimed up to 1,000 members (McQuinn Reference McQuinn2012b). Regardless of their size, however, these groups had symbiotic relationships with the communities, families, or neighborhoods that were funding and supporting them. That symbiosis survived the fall of Qadhafi and persisted beyond the war, and a close working relationship remains between revolutionary brigades (most of which have not demobilized) and local informal governing organs, known as “military councils.” These bodies enjoy strong support among the local communities from which they emanate, and so they have facilitated on-going collaboration among the armed actors operating under their watch. By and large, that collaboration has prevented outbreaks of violent turf-wars between brigades operating in their home city (outside of their city is another matter). The fact that religious fault lines are less pronounced in Libya than elsewhere in the region (97% of Libyans are Sunni Muslims) has also reduced the likelihood that revolutionary brigades might be co-opted by political actors in support of exclusivist agendas (Levinson Reference Levinson1998, 145).

In cities that did not play host to sustained fighting in 2011, there has been—and will continue to be—a greater potential for violence because many of the armed groups operating in those areas are neither integrated with, nor checked by, local communities or informal governance structures. Consider the case of Benghazi: Although early military defectors in the city formed a nascent military structure, this force operated in relative safety after frontlines were extended west to Ajdabiyya (northeast of Brega), early in the war. That safety, which was enabled by NATO airstrikes against government forces, meant that opposition militias in Benghazi did not come under sustained military pressure.Footnote ⁷ This reduced their reliance on local communities for support and loosened the influence of informal governance structures on militias' activities. Unchecked by community-based governance, extremist groups, such as the set of armed groups often referred to as Ansar al-Sharia, installed themselves after the uprising (Fitzgerald Reference Fitzgerald2013). These types of groups have been blamed for instigating a series of attacks, such as those against the ambassador of the United Kingdom (June 2012), the ICRC compound in Benghazi (August 2012), and the US Consulate (September 2012) (BBC News 2012; ICRC 2012). Given the continuing weakness of state security structures in the east, these kinds of attacks will likely continue there, and then expand west. Such a scenario would add to intermilitia violence that has already been seen in the capital, where rivalries between revolutionary brigades have been complicated by the emergence of postwar armed groups, including local community security patrolsFootnote ⁸ and criminal networks.

ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK 2: DILEMMAS OF GOVERNANCE?

Prior to the revolution, the opposition to Qadhafi was repressed at home, and diffuse abroad (Blanchard and Zanotti Reference Blanchard and Zanotti2011). As a consequence, few formal political associations were in place at the outbreak of war in February 2011. The political leadership during the uprising was embodied in one political entity, the National Transitional Council (NTC), which was established on March 5, 2011, in Benghazi.Footnote ⁹ The NTC was chaired by Mustafa Abdul Jalil—Qadhafi's Minister of Justice before the war. Although the largely self-appointed council was widely regarded as the legitimate voice of the revolution internationally, the overrepresentation of “easterners” in its ranks seriously curtailed its authority nationally (ICG 2011). At the same time, many members of the NTC—including Jalil—publicly committed to not run in the elections, either because of their ties to the previous regime or a simple wish to return to their prewar professions. For these reasons, the NTC did not become a “revolutionary” political force following the fall of Qadhafi.

In the absence of a dominant political movement, many parties emerged in the months preceding the July 2012 elections, and, ultimately, 374 different political parties competed on the ballot (UNSMIL 2012b). Although this political fractionalization within the newly elected General National Congress arguably complicated the process of forming a government, it had the unintended result that Libya did not, and still does not, play host to the kind of cohesive political coalitions that could realistically compete for unilateral control of the levers of government. This situation may change in the future, as the political landscape matures and political parties consolidate. It is hoped, however, that mechanisms for a peaceful management of political competition will be institutionalized by the time a consolidation of political actors takes place.

Another factor limiting the likelihood that political competition will give rise to sustained violence is the organizational distance that separates Libya's national-level political parties from the country's localized armed factions (ICG 2012). That distance is rooted in the dynamics of wartime opposition to Qadhafi. In the political realm, the NTC had a centralized structure, which was based in Benghazi. By contrast, the armed opposition to Qadhafi was, in essence, a series of largely independent (but simultaneous) rebellions, which saw hundreds of armed groups fight in loose, city-oriented coalitions that were usually linked to a local civilian and military council. In Misratah, for example, the local military council worked closely with the 236 distinct fighting groups that were operating in the city (McQuinn Reference McQuinn2012a). The NTC, meanwhile, had no operational command over those units.Footnote ¹⁰ Consequently, a clear organizational distinction existed between national political structures and local military actors. That distinction persisted into the immediate postwar era and so, even if a national-level political party was willing to use force as a means of taking power, it would not be well positioned to easily mobilize armed support. To be sure, brigade commanders have established regional unions of these revolutionary brigades since the end of war, and, over time, these city-based organizations have networked into a loose, national entity.Footnote ¹¹ To date, however, the leaders of these revolutionary unions have largely avoided politics and, instead, have portrayed themselves as neutral protectors of the revolution (for example, many provided security for the 2012 elections).Footnote ¹²

Although there seems to be little immediate danger that competition for national political power will turn violent, localized political rivalries have occasionally given rise to episodic violence, and this may continue. These rivalries, which are exemplified by tensions between the Berber city of Zuwara and its Arab neighbors al-Jumail and Reghdalin, are typically driven by long-standing ethnolinguistic divisions and Qaddafi-era grievances (ICG 2012). On isolated occasions, relations between such groups have devolved into communal conflict, which has been fought by amorphous groups on behalf of their city or ethnic group rather than by armed brigades that have defined leadership structures. In practice, these types of incidents have diminished as the transition has progressed, and it is fair to assume that such a trajectory will continue.

ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK 3: SECURITY SECTOR DILEMMAS?

The collapse of the Qadhafi-era security framework precludes the possibility of competition developing between prewar organizations. However, the creation of new state and quasi-state military groups, which have somewhat overlapping and ambiguous mandates, creates potential for future conflict. The most critical actors in this scenario are the Libyan Shield Forces, the Supreme Security Council, and the reconstituted Libyan Army (ICG 2012).

Although the 2011 uprising left Libya's state security apparatus in organizational disarray, transitional authorities chose not to purge the Libyan Army or its bureaucracy of Qadhafi supporters to avoid the descent into near-anarchy that followed the US-led process of de-Ba'athification in post-Saddam Iraq (McQuinn Reference McQuinn2012b). Unsurprisingly, leaders of the revolutionary brigades who cooperated in the overthrow of Qadhafi were then suspicious of security elites who had been appointed under the former dictator. Consequently, tensions soon emerged between the two sets of actors about who would bear responsibility for key security tasks of the transition, such as reconstruction of the army and disarmament of revolutionaries. Given the antagonistic relationship between revolutionary brigades and state security forces, and the operational weakness of the Libyan Army, revolutionary commanders established the Libyan Shield Forces in mid-2012 (ICG 2012). This organization is described as an army-in-waiting although, in practice, it is a diffuse organization made up of a network of city armies that are led and manned by revolutionary fighters. The Libyan Shield retains significant autonomy from the state, although its commanders theoretically report to the Libyan Army's chief of staff. The government, meanwhile, has shown its esteem for Libyan Shield Forces by deploying them (often instead of the army) in response to security incidents because the Shield is well-equipped and arguably better prepared for intervention than the Libyan Army. Also, the fact that members of the Libyan Shield Forces have received individual employment contracts from the Ministry of Defense highlights the increasing integration of the force into government structures.

A potential institutional competitor to the Libyan Shield Forces is the Supreme Security Council (SSC), which was created by an NTC decree in October 2011, when Qadhafi-era security services were essentially nonfunctional.Footnote ¹³ Although it was initially established by the Ministry of Interior as a temporary organization and it was scheduled to be disbanded in 2012, the SSC has become increasingly entrenched in the security apparatus of the new Libya—partly because no other security agency, as yet, exists to replace it. Although the SSC has assumed significant responsibility for security across the country, its forces' passivity in the face of the destruction of Sufi shrines raised domestic and international concern about the lack of checks and balances on the SSC's operations.Footnote ¹⁴ There is also concern that the division of labor between the SSC, the Libyan Shield Forces, and the Libyan Army lacks constitutional and legislative clarity. Given their overlapping and unclear mandates, relations between Libya's three security actors may dissolve into interagency competition for position and state resources in the post-Qadhafi era (Daragahi Reference Daragahi2012). As the Libyan Army strengthens with time, and it comes to threaten the position of the Libyan Shield Forces and the SSC, the potential for competition will increase.