Arms largely in control of non-government groups
in a deteriorating Libya are making their way by air, land, and sea
to countries from Nigeria to Syria, according to a United Nations
report by a panel of experts on the situation in Libya. That panel
was tasked with reviewing the effectiveness of arms embargos,
travel bans, and asset freezes implemented by various Security
Council resolutions, including Resolution 1973, which authorized a
no-fly zone over Libya and was used to justify NATO intervention.
On the arms embargo, the panel complains of “limited resources
with which to cover a two-way embargo that is breached on a regular
basis and covers the entirety of Libya’s territory” and that the
“geographical area covered by the Panel’s investigations expands
every year and includes a large part of Africa, Europe and the
Middle East.” One of the panel’s recommendations is for more
experts to analyze the situations on the ground. According to the
report, weapons from Libya have reached Tunisia, Algeria, Mali,
Niger, Chad, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Egypt,
and the Gaza Strip, almost a who’s who of deteriorating security
situations in the wider region. The U.N. reports weapons are also
trafficked via Turkey, Lebanon, and Qatar.
The panel is concerned, too, that some companies doing business
with gun stores in Libya don’t even know about the U.N. embargo.
Handguns, in particular, are in high demand, according to the
report, which suggests members of security forces could be selling
their handguns to civilians. Government agencies in Libya anyway
rely on local armed groups for some public security, which the U.N.
panel points to as an implication weapons are likely being
shared.
The demand for guns among civilians shouldn’t be as a surprise.
The U.N. panel describes a security situation that’s “considerably
deteriorated” and reports continued significant increases in
“carjacking, robbery, kidnappings, tribal disputes, political
assassinations, armed attacks and clashes, explosions from
improvised explosive devices and demonstrations.”
It’s likely not regular Libyans worried about their personal and
family security that’s a primary contributing factor to the overall
security situation in Libya. Instead, it’s what the U.N. panel
identifies as a “complicated mix of Al-Qaida affiliated and
inspired groups” that have set up across Libya in the chaos that
followed the 2011 intervention. The panel describes a firefight
between Special Forces from the Libyan government and Ansal
al-Shariah in Benghazi in November that killed nine. A campaign of
assassinations and suicide bombings has followed in the city. The
U.N. report also relays a raid on a Libyan military base identified
as “camp 27,” where the United States may have been training and
supplying Libyan forces. The U.S. government responded to the
panel’s questions that “some items that had been transferred to
Libyan control were unaccounted for and presumed stolen.” Libyan
forces have also been mired in clashes with former Qaddafi supports
and tribal groups in the southern desert.
The U.N. panel also reported on widespread non-compliance with
the travel ban and asset freezes. One travel-banned Qaddafi family
member traveled from Algeria to Oman, which both countries
confirmed, and Oman now says it doesn’t know where he is. The U.N.
panel suspects the asset freeze isn’t being enforced much in banks
throughout the African continent, where much of the Qaddafi
family’s “frozen” assets are believed to be.
Read the entire report here
(pdf).
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