Israeli experts: Libya – ISIS base for terror in Europe

Israeli experts: Libya – ISIS base for terror in Europe

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Libya is becoming an ISIS base for terror in Europe

Israeli security experts say that the growing presence of ISIS in Libya will enable the terror organization to launch terror attacks in European countries. ISIS currently has no presence in Europe itself; the recent terrorist attack have been perpetrated by lone gunmen or people with proven al-Qaeda association or even affiliation.

“ISIS is working according to a master plan. We believe that it is their aim to create a base of operations in Libya,” one of the experts told i-HLS.

There have been recent reports which allege that “unknown gunmen” had stormed the al-Mabrook oil field in Libya. The jihadist army forces of the Islamic State, ISIS, claimed responsibility, confirming warnings by a Libyan ambassador that ISIS covets Libya as a global terror base.

“Insufficient attention is paid in the West to ISIS’ creeping expansion in Libya, where the jihadists are focusing on capturing oil fields, as in Syria,” said retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, a founding member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi.

According to WND, ISIS is showing a regional presence that extends far beyond Syria and Iraq. The head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, Gen. Vincent Stewart, recently disclosed as much at a briefing to the House Armed Forces Committee.

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At least 20 terrorist organizations in Egypt, Libya and Algeria had recently joined ISIS and were operating under its orders, Gen. Stewart said.

In his prepared testimony, Stewart said that with “affiliates in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, the group is beginning to assemble a growing international footprint that includes ungoverned and under governed areas.”

“Similarly, the flow of foreign fighters into, and out of, Syria and Iraq – many of whom are aligned with [ISIS] – is troubling. In 2015, we expect [ISIS] to continue its outreach to other elements of the global extremist movement, and to continue benefitting from a robust foreign terrorist fighter flow.”

Egypt has been stepping up its airstrikes on ISIS strongholds in Libya, but this is hardly enough. Just as the anti-ISIS coalition has achieved nothing in Syria and Iraq through airstrikes – driving ISIS out of Libya will require ’boots on the ground’, to use the phrase President Obama himself coined. Ironically, he meant no troop commitment will be made, the US having pulled out of Afghanistan and Iraq not in order to return so soon.

Arie Egozi i-HLS Editor-in-Chief
Arie Egozi
i-HLS Editor-in-Chief