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Turkey Accused of Seeking to Use Libya to Establish ‘African Idlib’

A Boko Haram flag flies from an abandoned command post, Gamboru, Nigeria, February 4, 2015. (Getty Images)
A Boko Haram flag flies from an abandoned command post, Gamboru, Nigeria, February 4, 2015. (Getty Images)
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Turkey Accused of Seeking to Use Libya to Establish ‘African Idlib’

A Boko Haram flag flies from an abandoned command post, Gamboru, Nigeria, February 4, 2015. (Getty Images)
A Boko Haram flag flies from an abandoned command post, Gamboru, Nigeria, February 4, 2015. (Getty Images)

Libyans and extremist groups experts have expressed concerns that radical organizations may exploit the unrest in Libya to establish new strongholds for their activities in northern and western Africa and the Sahel region. Such concerns are justified as Turkey continues to bring in droves of mercenaries and extremists from northern Idlib in Syria to Libya.

Ankara had intervened in the Libyan crisis in favor of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

Founder of the “Silphium center for studies and research” Gamal Shallouf said Turkey has transformed Libya into a “backyard base” for terrorists because it continues to bring in extremists from Idlib and northern Syria to Tripoli.

This may pave the way for Libya to turn into an open ground for such terrorist organizations or for the emergence of new groups that may defect from present ones, he warned to Asharq Al-Awsat. “These new groups could be more radical than the original ones.”

He explained that after any defeat, terrorist groups often split up into smaller ones. This was demonstrated in Syria, where some terrorists have moved from one old battleground to a new one.

The international community should have rid Syria of these organizations, but Ankara swept in instead and moved them to Libya, he remarked.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had revealed that Turkey has transferred some 10,000 extremists from Syria to Libya. Many of these fighters were members of al-Qaeda and are wanted internationally on terror charges.

Shallouf cited confirmed reports in March that said members of the Hurras al-Din al-Qaeda affiliate had moved to Libya’s Misrata. Some have even headed to Mali. Former members of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group also headed to Libya in April

As for ISIS, members of the group have joined the affiliate in southern Libya, know as the “army of the desert”, that operates in southern Algeria, Chad and Niger.

Shallouf warned that the emergence of such fighters and new alliances will pose a danger not only to Libya, but the entire region. Some new groups, including ISIS affiliates, may align themselves with Boko Haram that is active in Nigeria, Chad and Mali. Others may join the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis.

Moreover, Shallouf warned that the extremists may take advantage of Libya’s strategic location and head to Europe. Unconfirmed reports said that some have even made it to the continent after traveling onboard illegal migrant boats.

Tunisian extremist groups expert Dr. Alaya Allani said Turkey is seeking to reduce the number of ISIS members in camps it oversees in Syria by transferring them to Libya under the pretense of backing the GNA.

In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said ISIS and al-Qaeda extremists will join present groups that are active in Africa. “Even though they follow contradictory ideologies and different leaderships, they have recently divided areas of influence, namely in Mali and Burkina Faso,” he added.

Despite the seemingly bleak outlook, he expressed confidence that the radical extremist groups will no longer be able to keep a foothold in Libya once the Berlin conference agreements are implemented.

“Contrary to Syria, no one in Libya will accept them, which means they will have to move to the Sahel region that borders Libya and also towards the Sahara Desert,” he said. The Sahara could some day become a main stronghold for such groups.

A report by the Egyptian Center for Strategic Studies found a sharp rise in terrorist activity in Africa in 2019. It documented 3,471 terror attacks that killed at least 10,000 people.

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Palestinians in Syria Flock to Cemetery Off-Limits under Assad

People pray by the grave of a relative in a damaged cemetery at the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in the south of Damascus on December 14, 2024. (AFP)
People pray by the grave of a relative in a damaged cemetery at the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in the south of Damascus on December 14, 2024. (AFP)
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Palestinians in Syria Flock to Cemetery Off-Limits under Assad

People pray by the grave of a relative in a damaged cemetery at the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in the south of Damascus on December 14, 2024. (AFP)
People pray by the grave of a relative in a damaged cemetery at the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in the south of Damascus on December 14, 2024. (AFP)

In a war-ravaged Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, Radwan Adwan was stacking stones to rebuild his father's grave, finally able to return to Yarmuk cemetery after Bashar al-Assad's fall.

"Without the fall of the regime, it would have been impossible to see my father's grave again," said 45-year-old Adwan.

"When we arrived, there was no trace of the grave."

It was his first visit there since 2018, when access to the cemetery south of Damascus was officially banned.

Assad's fall on December 8, after a lightning offensive led by opposition factions, put an end to decades of iron-fisted rule and years of bloody civil war that began with repression of peaceful anti-government protests in 2011.

Yarmuk camp fell to the opposition early in the war before becoming an extremist stronghold. It was bombed and besieged by Assad's forces, emptied of most of its residents and reduced to ruins before its recapture in 2018.

Assad's ouster has allowed former residents to return for the first time in years.

Back at the cemetery, Adwan's mother Zeina sat on a small metal chair in front of her husband's gravesite.

She was "finally" able to weep for him, she said. "Before, my tears were dry."

"It's the first time that I have returned to his grave for years. Everything has changed, but I still recognize where his grave is," said the 70-year-old woman.

Yarmuk camp, established in the 1950s to house Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their land after Israel's creation, had become a key residential and commercial district over the decades.

Some 160,000 Palestinians lived there alongside thousands of Syrians before the country's conflict erupted in 2011.

Thousands fled in 2012, and few have found their homes still standing in the eerie wasteland that used to be Yarmuk.

Along the road to the cemetery, barefoot children dressed in threadbare clothes play with what is left of a swing set in a rubble-strewn area that was once a park.

- 'Spared no one' -

A steady stream of people headed to the cemetery, looking for their loved ones' gravesites after years.

"Somewhere here is my father's grave, my uncle's, and another uncle's," said Mahmud Badwan, 60, gesturing to massive piles of grey rubble that bear little signs of what may lie beneath them.

Most tombstones are broken.

Near them lay breeze blocks from adjacent homes which stand empty and open to the elements.

"The Assad regime spared neither the living nor the dead. Look at how the ruins have covered the cemetery. They spared no one," Badwan said.

There is speculation that the cemetery may also hold the remains of famed Israeli spy Eli Cohen and an Israeli solider.

Cohen was tried and hanged for espionage by the Syrians in 1965 after he infiltrated the top levels of the government.

Camp resident Amina Mounawar leaned against the wall of her ruined home, watching the flow of people arriving at the cemetery.

Some wandered the site, comparing locations to photos on their phones taken before the war in an attempt to locate graves in the transformed site.

"I have a lot of hope for the reconstruction of the camp, for a better future," said Mounawar, 48, as she offered water to those arriving at the cemetery.