Salafist militia leader in Libya says, “America created the Islamic State.” ISIS was able to tighten its grip in Libya because 2011 US bombing that cost US taxpayers $1.1 billion left Libya hollowed out and lacking structure needed for a functioning state-The New Yorker, Aug. 10, 2016

Salafist militia leader in Libya says, "America created the Islamic State."..."ISIS was able to tighten its grip because Libya is a shattered, hollowed-out country."... 

Aug. 10, 2016, "The Grinding Fight to Root Out ISIS in a Battered Libya," The New Yorker, by Frederic Wehrey 

"The Islamic State in Libya began to arrive in Sirte in late 2014, drawing partial support from tribes and communities that had enjoyed Qaddafi’s favors but were now excluded from the revolutionary order. Most of its real muscle, though, came from abroad: Iraqi, Yemeni, Syrian, and Saudi advisers; foot soldiers from Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, and the Sahelian states to the south of Libya."

ISIS was able to tighten its grip because Libya is a shattered, hollowed-out country, lacking the basic sinews of governance that define a functioning state. There is no singular army or police unit. Instead, a dizzying array of militias holds sway, most of them loyal to towns, tribes, or power brokers. Much of this disorder stems from the legacy of Qaddafi’s forty-two-year rule, but a lack of international follow-up after the 2011 revolution is also to blame. Then, in 2014, the country descended into civil war between eastern and western factions, which each fielded its own parliament, Prime Minister, and coalition of militias. 

Each saw the other as a more pressing threat than the Islamic State, enabling the terrorist group to take hold and spread. Early this year, a United Nations-brokered unity government, meant to bridge the divisions, arrived in Tripoli. But that government is struggling to consolidate its authority and remains unrecognized by the eastern faction, which is allied with a powerful army officer and Qaddafi-era defector, [who lived in exile in the US state of Virginia for 20 years while plotting to oust Qaddafi] General Khalifa Haftar.

By late 2015, local militias across the country had started pushing back against the Islamic State in the pockets of territory it controlled: Derna and Benghazi in the east and the western coastal town of Sabratha. And, in May of this year, the unity government launched a campaign dubbed “al-Bunyan al-Marsus” to evict the Islamic State from Sirte, its strongest and most strategic base, sitting astride the petroleum-rich “oil crescent.” After some euphoric advances, the fighting has slowed to grinding, block-by-block combat against the several hundred Islamic State fighters ensconced in the city center. The Libyan casualties have been heavy: more than three hundred killed since the assault began. Faced with these losses, the unity government requested American air strikes against the Islamic State in Sirte, which came on August 1st.

But, while Western powers may be able to help the military advance, they face a tougher challenge in forging unity among Libya’s factions—even among the disparate militias assaulting Sirte. The Libyan fighters in Sirte number in the thousands and are drawn from hundreds of militias, most from the neighboring town of Misrata. The unity government exerts only nominal authority over them. Some militias in Sirte reject the unity government’s legitimacy altogether and fight for their own parochial reasons, forging alliances with local Sirte tribes to gain political and economic leverage. Still others are Islamists.
 
I visited one militia composed almost entirely of adherents of the austere, literalist current of Islamism known as Salafism. One of its leaders, a bespectacled man in a calf-length gown, sat cleaning his teeth with a miswak, a twig whose use for dental hygiene was advocated by the Prophet Muhammad. He seemed to hold the Islamic State, the rival Muslim Brotherhood sect, and America in equal contempt. “America created the Islamic State,” he told me. Among his comrades are a few hundred fellow-Salafists from Sirte who fled last year after a failed uprising against the Islamic State and are now returning.

On the liberated outskirts of Sirte, I visited a family who had suffered the terrorist group’s rule for more than a year. We sat in the cool shade under an awning, overlooking a vineyard and an olive grove. A gangly dog had wandered into the parched field and was chasing a solitary chicken. My militia escort squeezed off a few rounds from his Kalashnikov to scare it away."...

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US taxpayers were forced to pay $1.1 billion for Hillary's 2011 war in Libya. "ISIS was able to tighten its grip because Libya is a shattered, hollowed-out country, lacking the basic sinews of governance.... A lack of international follow-up after the 2011 revolution is also to blame." By 2014, Libya was in full civil war, formed two separate governments in the east and west, "which fielded its own parliament, Prime Minister, and coalition of militias."

6/15/2011, "Obama Administration: Libya Operation Has Cost More than $716 Million, Does Not Require Congressional Authorization," ABC News, Jake Tapper

"In a report revealing that the total cost of US intervention in Libya as of June 3 has been $716 million and will reach $1.1 billion by the end of September, the Obama administration today told congressional leaders in a report (click HERE for an unauthorized version)."...

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"On Oct. 20, 2011...militants captured Gaddafi, sodomized him with a knife, and then murdered him. Appearing on a TV interview, (Hillary) Clinton celebrated Gaddafi’s demise with the quip,  

“we came; we saw; he died.”"...



10/22/2011, "Hillary Clinton on Gaddafi: We came, we saw, he died," You Tube 
 




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