(MintPress) – The seizure of Libya’s international airport by an armed militia group last week, combined with an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, has left many Americans wary of investing in the future of Libya after the removal of former President Muammar Gaddafi last year.
As an armed militia temporarily seized control of Tripoli’s international airport last Monday, Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur was in the United States at the same time trying to persuade new American companies to invest in Libya’s economy by creating jobs for former rebel fighters who have not laid down their guns.
Speaking to the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce (NUSACC) in Washington, Abushagur expressed the need for American investments in infrastructure, telecommunications and health. “Our economy is based on one thing: pumping oil from the ground. We need to change that,” said Abushagur, who hopes Libya will flourish as a peaceful tourism destination with a lower dependency on oil in the future.
“NUSACC has been privileged to receive numerous high-level delegates from Libya in recent months, and today’s visit by H.E. Dr. Mustafa A.G. Abushagur represents a ‘high-water mark’ in the growing relationship between Libya and the United States,” said David Hamod, President & CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce.
Dr. Abushagur’s visit builds on progress made in U.S.-Libyan trade relations following a historic visit by Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib in March 2012 when numerous cooperative agreements were signed between the two nations. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was also signed in March between NUSACC and the Tripoli Chamber of Commerce, Industry, and Agriculture – the third of its kind.
In the midst the Arab Spring, exports to Libya fell by 56.9 percent to $287.1 million, while U.S. imports fell 69.5 percent to $645 million throughout 2011. Increased meetings between U.S. and Libyan officials, such as Abushagur’s visit to NUSACC, are a hopeful sign that exports and imports will pick back up in 2012.
“The National U.S.-Arab Chamber is eager to build on past successes and to re-double our efforts to expand U.S.-Libya trade in the new environment of political and economic freedom,” stated Hon. Don De Marino, NUSACC’s Co-Chairman, as he addressed a crowd of 150 American businesses and government leaders. “We look forward to helping build even stronger ties between Libyan and American companies as we all move forward together.”
Investments bleak in wake of instability
While Libyan and American business professionals met in Washington, Tripoli’s international airport was seized by members of an armed militia from the western town of Tarhouna – just one incident in a string of unrest that has left many business professionals skeptical about investing in the country’s economy.
According to Libyan media sources, the militia—known as the Al-Awfia brigade—occupied the airport in retaliation for the kidnapping of its commander, Abu-Alija Habshi, whose whereabouts and assailants are currently unknown. Speaking with a reporter from the Libyan Herald, rebel Abdel El-Ati Alssani told reporters, “We are here because we want the release of our commander.”
It is unclear how the conflict was officially resolved and whether or not concessions were made to appease the militia. Gunfire was heard as troops arrived on the scene and eventually the militia members were arrested. A hangar was blown up and a field set ablaze during the engagement, though no casualties were reported. Armed checkpoints have sprung up throughout Tripoli following the incident after being nearly non-existent for months.
David Bachmann, head of the commercial section at the Austrian embassy in Tripoli, sees such incidents as a major setback for new investments. “It is especially bad for newcomers. They want to be able to travel to the airport, to their hotel, and hold meetings safely, but when they hear about rockets flying at the airport, they won’t come,” said Bachmann. “It is difficult for someone like myself to try to convince such companies that this is not a big thing.”
The following day, an improvised explosive device (IED) was placed outside the U.S. mission in Benghazi, slightly damaging the building’s gate. “We deplore the attack on our diplomatic mission in Benghazi,” said State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, in a briefing.
Prior to the attack, Washington had confirmed that a U.S.-led drone attack in Pakistan had killed Abu Yahya Al-Libi, a Libyan-born cleric and senior al-Qaida operative. Although Toner said there was no reason to believe that the attack on the U.S. mission in Libya was in retaliation for Al-Libi’s killing, other analysts disagreed.
A Libyan security source told CNN that a jihadist group, called the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, claimed responsibility for the attack and distributed leaflets at the scene, which promised future attacks on the United States.
According to Reuters, Norman Benotman, a former radical Islamist from Libya and expert on militant groups, said, “The possibility that this act took place because of what happened to Abu Yahya is, in my personal opinion, a very strong one.”
“Al-Qaida loyalists maybe wanted to deliver a message to the U.S…to say enough is enough,” said Benotman, most likely referring to the U.S. government’s increased use of drones in the targeted killing of suspected terrorists including al-Qaida deputy Al-Libi.
War on terror shifting west
An announcement translated by Flashpoint Partners, which tracks jihadist movements, affirms Benotman’s suspicions. In the statement, the brigade reportedly said that, “This operation is considered a response to the attempt of targeting Shaykh Abu Yahya Al-Libi…and in response for disturbing the purity of Libya’s sky by the unmanned aerial vehicles, operated by the American Forces.”
A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that in 17 out of 21 countries surveyed, more than half of respondents disapproved of U.S. drone attacks, which target extremist leaders and groups in countries including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
Despite the controversy surrounding the high numbers of civilian casualties caused by these unpopular programs, the Obama administration has been stepping up attacks in Yemen and other countries as the war on terror shifts westward from Pakistan.
Some analysts believe the death of Abu Yahya Al-Libi may speed up the transition of power from al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan to its affiliates across the Arabian Peninsula and northern Africa. “Now, with most of their well-known figures out of the picture, it will be hard for al-Qaida’s core to maintain its role as the example for its affiliates to follow,” one American official who studies classified counterterrorism reports told the New York Times.
While al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen, maintains the strongest leadership of the movement outside of Pakistan, other affiliates in Libya and Mali are also becoming more active.
In North Africa, al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has increased kidnappings for ransom as a financial model for other affiliates to follow. Northern Mali in particular has the potential to become a regional base for AQIM after Tuareg rebels returned from Libya with heavy weapons to join forces with other extremists and AQIM affiliates in establishing a self-proclaimed Islamic state, seizing the northern half of the country after a military coup toppled the civilian government earlier this year.
In Libya, the same group claiming responsibility for the recent attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi also claimed responsibility for an attack on the city’s Red Cross office last month. The Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades, whose name refers to the blind Egyptian cleric currently serving life in prison in the U.S. in connection to the World Trade Center 1993 bombings, allegedly posted a video of the attack on a jihadist website frequented by al-Qaida supporters.
Instability brings the wrong kind of investments
Juan Cole, American scholar and historian of the modern Middle East, believes that despite recent incidents, Libya is heading in the right direction. “I went to Libya expecting to find people nervous about going out, expecting to find a lot of shops shuttered, and expecting to be stopped at militia checkpoints…Maybe such things exist in smaller provincial cities that I didn’t visit…” wrote Cole about a trip to Libya right before the airport incident.
Instead, Cole “found a society actively reconstructing itself where people clearly were going about their ordinary lives…where there were no militiamen on the streets, no checkpoints, and where there were actually traffic cops directing traffic.”
Yet, recent incidents in Libya have shown that while rebels and militias are not constantly on the offensive, they are still present and can easily influence the reestablishment of checkpoints.
“These young people, they need challenges,” said Deputy Prime Minister Abushagur of such armed rebels in his meeting with the NUSACC in Washington last week. “As long as they have no jobs, they’re going to have Kalashnikovs and they’re going to be in the streets, probably creating checkpoints,” he said.
However, sporadic militia attacks, combined with the shifting influence of al-Qaida affiliates in the Maghreb, may bring increased U.S. investments in drone surveillance rather than investments in jobs and infrastructure that Abushagur and other Libyans desire.