Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Libya

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) first publicly announced its presence in Libya in October 2014, when videos appeared online showing a large group of militants in the city of Derna pledging their allegiance to ISIL's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Shortly after, al-Baghdadi recognized the pledge of allegiance and announced the creation of three "provinces" in Libya: Barqa in the east, Fezzan in the desert south, and Tripolitania (or Tarabulus) in the west.

Background
Following the 2011 Libyan Civil War, which resulted in the ousting of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and his government, many rebel fighters went to Syria to fight alongside militant groups who were fighting Bashar al-Assad and his loyalists in the Syrian Civil War. In 2012, one group of Libyans fighting in Syria declared the establishment of the Battar Brigade. The Battar Brigade would later pledge loyalty to ISIL, and fight for it in both Syria and Iraq.

In the spring of 2014, up to 300 Battar Brigade veterans returned to Libya. In Derna, they formed a new faction called the Islamic Youth Shura Council, which began recruiting militants from other local groups. Among the joinees were many members of the Derna branch of Ansar al-Sharia. During the next few months, they declared war on anyone in Derna who opposed them, killing judges, civic leaders and other opponents, including local militants who rejected their authority such as the al-Qaeda-allied Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade.

In September 2014, an ISIL delegation that had been dispatched by the group's leadership arrived in Libya. The representatives included Abu Nabil al Anbari, a senior aide to al-Baghdadi and a veteran of the Iraq conflict, the Saudi Abu Habib al-Jazrawi, and the Yemeni or Saudi Abu al-Baraa el-Azdi, a militant and preacher from Syria. On 5 October 2014, the Islamic Youth Shura Council-aligned militant factions came together and pledged allegiance to ISIL. After the pledging ceremony, more than 60 pickup trucks filled with fighters cruised through the city in a victory parade. A second more formal gathering involving a larger array of factions took place on 30 October 2014, where the militants gathered to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in the city square.

On 13 November 2014, al-Baghdadi released an audio-recording in which he accepted pledges of allegiance from supporters in five countries, including Libya, and announced the expansion of his group to those territories. He went on to announce the creation of three "provinces" (wilayat) in Libya, Barqa (Cyrenaica) in the east, Fezzan in the south, and Tripolitania in the west.

Attacks and expansion across Libya
ISIL claims it has chapters in al Bayda, Benghazi, Sirte, al-Khums, and the Libyan capital Tripoli. The Barqa branch of ISIL has around 800 fighters and has half a dozen camps in Derna's outskirts. It also has larger facilities in the Jebel Akhdar area, where fighters from other countries in North Africa are being trained.

In December 2014, ISIL recruiters in Turkey told their Libyan associates to stop sending fighters to Syria and to focus on domestic attacks instead, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the following weeks, Libyan militants that pledged allegiance to ISIL become increasingly aggressive, carrying out attacks against oil installations and an international hotels, performing mass executions and attempting to take over further Libyan territory. Alliances were also made with al Qaeda-linked groups that did not formally pledge allegiance, such as the Benghazi branch of Ansar al-Sharia, members of Tunisia's Ansar al-Sharia, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb's Tarek Ibn Ziyad Brigade On 30 March 2015, Ansar al-Sharia's general Sharia jurist Abu Abdullah Al-Libi pledged allegiance to ISIL, a number of the groups members defected with him.

The city of Sirte, which had been loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and suffered massive damage at the conclusion of the 2011 Civil War, had become home to militant Islamist groups like the local wing of Ansar al-Sharia. After ISIL's declaration of a caliphate in 2014, small numbers of foreigners began arrived in the city. They formally announced their presence in early 2015, by driving a parade of vehicles through the city and declaring Sirte part of their caliphate. Ansar al-Sharia split up in a dispute over how to respond, with most of their members joining ISIL. The group reportedly recruited many locals, former Gaddafi supporters alienated from the post-war political order in Libya, after they "repented" and pledged allegiance to al-Baghdadi. They were quickly able to take over much of the east of the city.

In February 2015, ISIL took over the neighbouring town of Nofaliya. A convoy of 40 heavily armed vehicles arrived from Sirte and ordered Nofaliya's residents to "repent" and pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The fighters appointed Ali Al-Qarqaa as emir of the town. Nofaliya was briefly retaken by New General National Congress forces on 19 March 2015, but ISIL forces regained it after days of clashes. In May 2015, ISIL forces in Sirte went on the offensive, seizing control of Ghardabiya Air Base and infrastructure point like power plants and part of the Great Man-Made River water irrigation project. In June 2015, ISIL forces seized control of the town of Harawa, 46 km east of Sirte. It suffered significant reverses the same month in Derna, as fierce clashes with the rival Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna lead to ISIL forces being driven out of their strongholds in the city by July.

Propaganda
The "Media Office for Wilayat Barqa" has published photos and other material showing buildings with ISIL insignia, suicide bombers, parades, and pledges of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. A reporter for the New York Times who visited the outskirts of Sirte found that ISIL had taken over the local radio station, and all four stations on the dial were being used to transmit Islamic sermons.

ISIL in Libya had threatened to facilitate the arrival of thousands of migrants to destabilize Europe if they are attacked.



Human rights abuses and war crimes allegations
By late 2014, Derna was fully under ISIL control, with the Black Standard flying over government buildings, police cars carrying ISIL insignia, and the local football stadium being used for public executions. A Human Rights Watch report accused ISIL linked groups in control of Derna of war crimes and human rights abuses that include terrorizing residents in the absence of state authorities and the rule of law. Human Rights Watch documented 3 apparent summary executions and at least 10 public floggings by the Islamic Youth Shura Council, which joined ISIL in November 2014. They also documented beheadings of three Derna residents and 250 seemingly politically motivated assassinations of judges, public officials, members of the security forces, journalists, and others with no public investigations. Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW Middle East, and North Africa director said, "Commanders should understand that they may face domestic or international prosecution for the grave rights abuses their forces are committing."

Under ISIL's watch, women increasingly wore face veils young men caught drinking alcohol were flogged. Education changes included male/female segregation of students, and the removal of history and geography from the curriculum. New Islamic religious police flyers ordered clothing stores to cover their mannequins and not to display "scandalous women's clothes that cause sedition." The law school was closed.

Claimed and alleged attacks

 * In November 2014, ISIL's Barqa wing claimed it had previously dispatched nine suicide bombers from Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia to carry out attacks against Libyan security forces in and around Benghazi. CNN reported that several of these attacks seemed to correspond to previously unclaimed suicide bombings, including a twin-attack on a Libyan special forces camp in Benghazi on 23 July 2014 and a 2 October 2014 attack on a military checkpoint near Benina airport.
 * Wilayat Barqa is the prime suspect in a 12 November 2014 suicide bombing in Tobruk that killed one and wounded 14, and a bombing outside Labraq air force base in Al-Bayda that killed four, according to a CNN report.
 * On November 13, bombs exploded near the embassies of Egypt and the UAE in Tripoli, however no casualties were reported. An ISIL-linked Twitter account suggested their Tripoli wing was responsible for the attacks, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.
 * In December 2014, the beheaded bodies of Mohammed Battu and Sirak Qath, human rights activists abducted in Derna on 6 November 2014, were found.
 * In January 2015, the group's Barqa branch published photos claiming to show the execution of two Tunisian journalists who had been kidnapped in September 2014.
 * On 27 January 2015, an attack on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli involving gunmen and a carbomb killed at least ten people, including five foreigners. The group's Tripoli branch claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming it was revenge for the death of Libyan al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi in American custody earlier in the month.
 * On 3 February 2015, gunmen claiming to represent ISIL stormed a French-Libyan oil field near the town of Mabruk, killing nine guards.
 * On 15 February 2015, ISIL released a video showing the beheading of 21 Christian Egyptians who had been kidnapped in Sirte. ISIL’s Dabiq magazine had earlier published photos of the Copts and threatened to kill them to "avenge the kidnapping of Muslim women by the Egyptian Coptic Church".
 * On 20 February 2015, the group carried out bombings in Al Qubbah, which targeted a petrol station, a police station and the home of the Libyan parliamentary speaker, killing at least 40 people.
 * ISIL claimed responsibility for a 24 March 2014 suicide carbombing that killed five soldiers and two civilians at an army checkpoint in Benghazi.
 * A 5 April 2015, ISIL's Tripolitania branch claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a checkpoint outside Misrata, which killed four and wounded 21.
 * On 13 April 2015 militants claiming loyalty to ISIL posted claims of responsibility on Twitter for a bombing outside the Moroccan embassy that caused no casualties, and a gun attack on the South Korean embassy the day before that killed two guards.
 * On 19 April 2015 a video was released online by ISIL showing the killing of approximately 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya. 15 of the men were beheaded, and another group of the same size were shot in the head.
 * On 27 April 2015, the bodies of five men with slit throats were found in the Green Mountain forests. The bodies were identified as five journalists working for a Libyan TV station who had been kidnapped at an ISIL checkpoint in August 2014.
 * On 9 June 2015 US government officials confirmed that ISIL in Libya had captured 86 Eritrean migrants south of Tripoli.
 * On 10 June 2015, ISIL gunmen in Derna killed Nasser Akr and Salem Derbi, two senior commanders of the Al Qaeda affiliated Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna.

Commentary and significance
The events in Derna are seen by ISIL and its proponents as a model for ISIL expansion outside Iraq and Syria. ISIL calls this territory "Wilayah Barqa", using a term denoting eastern Libya.

The Long War Journal says that the pledges of support in Libya don't represent any well-established terrorist organizations "...the Islamic State has failed, thus far, to garner the allegiance of Ansar al Sharia Libya, which is notorious for its role in the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi and remains one of the most powerful jihadist organizations in eastern Libya. None of Ansar al Sharia's allies in the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, the Islamist coalition fighting General Khalifa Haftar's forces for control of territory, pledged allegiance to Baghdadi. The Islamic State has supporters in Libya, particularly among the jihadist youth. But other groups are still, by all outward appearances, more entrenched."

“ISIS pose a serious threat in Libya. They are well on the way to creating an Islamic emirate in eastern Libya. […] Most of the local population in Derna are opposed to the takeover by the Islamic State, but, with the complete absence of any central government presence, they are not in a position to do much for now," said Noman Benotman, a former Libyan jihadi now working in counterterrorism for the Quilliam Foundation.

"ISIS is a brand name, it has widespread recognition, and in the eyes of many adherents, it's successful." says Samer Shehata, an associate professor of Middle Eastern politics at the University of Oklahoma. Joining ISIL takes them from being little known to household names.

Libya Dawn claimed that it had intelligence reports showing that those who claimed to support ISIL in Tripoli were agents provocateur planted by foreign countries to discredit it. The statement implies that ISIL is present in eastern Libya, but is viewed as an attempt to explain away the growing issue of the extremists in the west. Despite the fact that ISIL flags have reportedly been seen recently in Tripoli, ISIL supporters are said to be present at the Majr camp in Zliten, and in Sabratha.

Following the expansion of ISIL in Libya, Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat and Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil called for the United Nations and European Union to intervene in Libya to prevent the country from becoming a failed state.