Exclusive — Asharq Al-Awsat Inside the Dens of Extremists in Libya: ISIS Defeat Discloses Cross-Border Ties

Members of the Libyan army's special forces take cover as a tank fires towards Islamist militants during clashes in the militants' last stronghold in Benghazi. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori
Members of the Libyan army's special forces take cover as a tank fires towards Islamist militants during clashes in the militants' last stronghold in Benghazi. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori
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Exclusive — Asharq Al-Awsat Inside the Dens of Extremists in Libya: ISIS Defeat Discloses Cross-Border Ties

Members of the Libyan army's special forces take cover as a tank fires towards Islamist militants during clashes in the militants' last stronghold in Benghazi. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori
Members of the Libyan army's special forces take cover as a tank fires towards Islamist militants during clashes in the militants' last stronghold in Benghazi. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori

When a group of militants and civilians swarmed to check a laptop that was confiscated from an ISIS-headquarter, it turned out that the laptop’s content doesn’t pertain to extremist activity in Benghazi and Libya only but is much broader.

The information provided by the intelligence bodies and that driven by laptops of ISIS members, who were arrested or killed in Benghazi or Misurata, reflects the ties that control terrorism dissemination in north Africa.

A Libyan officer managed to get into an ISIS den and laid hands over pieces of evidence that show the involvement of states and intelligence bodies in the cross-border extremist activity.

In Libya, there are official intelligence bodies but they are distracted among several governments battling for power. There are also intelligence small groups that act as arms for militias.

In the early morning, a new round of Bossneb battle was launched – it was one of the fiercest battles. ISIS took shelter inside the group’s stronghold while Sa'ka Forces in Benghazi insisted on reaching the stronghold no matter what. It consisted of two floors.

ISIS members managed to plant explosives in the surrounding area of the building before the attack. Officers in Sa'ka Forces had to advance to dissociate the explosives but were being confronted with the snipers.

There is a treasure here. In face of the group’s fighters insistence to resist the officers also insisted to move forward step after step until having full control over the building and entering the den. As the day was about to end, the extremists seemed to follow a plan for retreating, so it was necessary to pressure them so that they don’t carry with them anything from the stronghold.

After defeating ISIS, the victorious group moved the belongings that were left behind and handed them out to the relevant parties in the army to be examined.

Based on the findings, there are centers found in several states in Africa, Asia and Europe that have been working for years on reinforcing extremist groups in Libya in order to dominate the country and to destabilize the neighboring countries.

Sa'ka Forces of Libya were first formed in Egypt in 1979 on the level of leaders and individuals. Nowadays, officers are graduating from the Libyan military colleges and are being trained by Special Forces in Egypt.

Libyan army spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari said that “Sa'ka Forces are essential in the fight against terrorism because the war against terrorism differs from the traditional war. It is closer to the wars of gangs since they end as quick as they start.”

“The war on terrorism, ISIS and al-Qaeda doesn't end with declaring surrendering or winning. It ends with killing, arresting or termination all manifestations of these groups. Therefore, the battle is tough and it demands special training and special forces,” Memsari added.

One of the most professional military operations was that conducted by the army to liberate dozens of captives in Qanfouda, where extremists were detaining men, women and children underground. Meanwhile, leaders of extremist groups in Tripoli and Misurata were threatening to kill the hostages if the army advances.

But the operation was conducted, according to Mesmari, without losing any captive. “Yet, we lost soldiers in order to release the captives,” said Mesmari.



US Spends a Record $17.9 Billion on Military Aid to Israel Since Last Oct. 7

An Israeli fighter jet releases flares as it flies over the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Dec. 9, 2023. (AP)
An Israeli fighter jet releases flares as it flies over the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Dec. 9, 2023. (AP)
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US Spends a Record $17.9 Billion on Military Aid to Israel Since Last Oct. 7

An Israeli fighter jet releases flares as it flies over the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Dec. 9, 2023. (AP)
An Israeli fighter jet releases flares as it flies over the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Dec. 9, 2023. (AP)

The United States has spent a record of at least $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began and led to escalating conflict around the Middle East, according to a report for Brown University's Costs of War project, released on the anniversary of Hamas’ attacks on Israel.

An additional $4.86 billion has gone into stepped-up US military operations in the region since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, researchers said in findings first provided to The Associated Press. That includes the costs of a Navy-led campaign to quell strikes on commercial shipping by Yemen's Houthis, who are carrying them out in solidarity with the fellow Iranian-backed group Hamas.

The report — completed before Israel opened a second front, this one against Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, in late September — is one of the first tallies of estimated US costs as the Biden administration backs Israel in its conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon and seeks to contain hostilities by Iran-allied armed groups in the region.

The financial toll is on top of the cost in human lives: Hamas fighters killed more than 1,200 people in Israel a year ago and took others hostage. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 42,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

At least 1,400 people in Lebanon, including Hezbollah fighters and civilians, have been killed since Israel greatly expanded its strikes in that country in late September.

The financial costs were calculated by Linda J. Bilmes, a professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, who has assessed the full costs of US wars since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and fellow researchers William D. Hartung and Stephen Semler.

Here's a look at where some of the US taxpayer money went:

Record military aid to Israel

Israel — a protege of the United States since its 1948 founding — is the biggest recipient of US military aid in history, getting $251.2 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1959, the report says.

Even so, the $17.9 billion spent since Oct. 7, 2023, in inflation-adjusted dollars, is by far the most military aid sent to Israel in one year. The US committed to providing billions in military assistance to Israel and Egypt each year when they signed their 1979 US-brokered peace treaty, and an agreement since the Obama administration set the annual amount for Israel at $3.8 billion through 2028.

The US aid since the Gaza war started includes military financing, arms sales, at least $4.4 billion in drawdowns from US stockpiles and hand-me-downs of used equipment.

Much of the US weapons delivered in the year were munitions, from artillery shells to 2,000-pound bunker-busters and precision-guided bombs.

Expenditures range from $4 billion to replenish Israel's Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems to cash for rifles and jet fuel, the study says.

Unlike the United States' publicly documented military aid to Ukraine, it was impossible to get the full details of what the US has shipped Israel since last Oct. 7, so the $17.9 billion for the year is a partial figure, the researchers said.

They cited Biden administration “efforts to hide the full amounts of aid and types of systems through bureaucratic maneuvering.”

Funding for the key US ally during a war that has exacted a heavy toll on civilians has divided Americans during the presidential campaign. But support for Israel has long carried weight in US politics, and Biden said Friday that “no administration has helped Israel more than I have."

US military operations in the Middle East

The Biden administration has bolstered its military strength in the region since the war in Gaza started, aiming to deter and respond to any attacks on Israeli and American forces.

Those additional operations cost at least $4.86 billion, the report said, not including beefed-up US military aid to Egypt and other partners in the region.

The US had 34,000 forces in the Middle East the day that Hamas broke through Israeli barricades around Gaza to attack. That number rose to about 50,000 in August when two aircraft carriers were in the region, aiming to discourage retaliation after a strike attributed to Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. The total is now around 43,000.

The number of US vessels and aircraft deployed — aircraft carrier strike groups, an amphibious ready group, fighter squadrons, and air defense batteries — in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden has varied during the year.

The Pentagon has said another aircraft carrier strike group is headed to Europe very soon and that could increase the troop total again if two carriers are again in the region at the same time.

The fight against the Houthis

The U. military has deployed since the start of the war to try to counter escalated strikes by the Houthi militias that control Yemen's capital and northern areas, and have been firing on merchant ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Gaza. The researchers called the $4.86 billion cost to the US an “unexpectedly complicated and asymmetrically expensive challenge.”

Houthis have kept launching attacks on ships traversing the critical trade route, drawing US strikes on launch sites and other targets. The campaign has become the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II.

“The US has deployed multiple aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers and expensive multimillion-dollar missiles against cheap Iranian-made Houthi drones that cost $2,000,” the authors said.

Just Friday, the US military struck more than a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen, going after weapons systems, bases and other equipment, officials said.

The researchers' calculations included at least $55 million in additional combat pay from the intensified operations in the region.