Shawki Ibrahim Allam, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, said so far 50 verses of the Quran that have been misinterpreted by the ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) terrorist group have been identified by the Dar-al-Ifta Center of Egypt.

He said the center is working to present the true interpretation of the verses and counter the terrorist group’s deviated approaches, al-Dastour news website reported.

Allam added that the move is aimed at preventing the youth from falling into the trap of ISIL.

He underlined that Islam and all other divine religions are against the violence that Takfiri terrorist groups, especially ISIL, commit.

ISIL/ISIS is a Takfiri group believed to be supported by the West and some regional Arab countries.

The terrorist group claims as an independent state the territory of Iraq and Syria, with implied future claims intended over more of the Levant, including Lebanon, occupied Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, and Southern Turkey.

The ISIL members have been committing heinous crimes in the areas they have taken, including the mass execution of civilians in Iraq and Syria.

abna24.com

Shin Bet veteran Nadav Argaman is to be appointed as the next chief of Israel’s domestic security service.

Mr Argaman, 55, who joined the Shin Bet straight from the IDF, where he was a special-forces officer, spent most of his 33-year career in the organisation’s operational division, which he led.

He resume includes also four years in charge of security of all Israeli institutions in North America, and a year on secondment to the Israeli Atomic Energy Agency.

He served two periods as deputy chief and was widely regarded as the only serious candidate for the top role from within the organisation.

Unlike previous appointments to the leadership of Israel’s main security and intelligence organisations, this appointment by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was relatively straight-forward and was not dragged out until the last moment.

As the next Shin Bet Chief, Mr Argaman will have to deal with the rise in terror attacks, mainly carried out by Palestinian individuals with no previous terror affiliation; the growing attempts by Daesh to recruit and carry out attacks in Israel; and the increasing threat of cyber-attacks.

thejc.com

The Lebanese army shelled positions of Islamic State [Daesh] militants in the Eastern Mountain Range, the state-run National News Agency said on Sunday.

The army targeted the positions of the militants that are close to the outskirts of Ras Baalbek and the northeastern town of Arsal in the Eastern Mountain Range, added NNA.

The militants clash with the army occasionally but a major confrontation erupted in August 2014 when the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front overran Arsal in the wake of the arrest of a senior IS leader.

Nineteen soldiers and around 60 militants were killed in the fighting. The jihadists of the two groups also abducted dozens of troops and policemen of which four were eventually executed.

Nusra released in December 16 servicemen in a prisoner swap that released a number of inmates from Lebanese jails.

albawaba.com

It has now become the second-most chaotic place for attacks on neighbouring countries, particularly Tunisia and Egypt, as well as Europe.

On October 12, 2013, I had written in The Views section of Gulf News about a trip that took me to Tripoli, Libya, where I met a well-established businessman who had just returned to his country from exile in London. He was fully optimistic that the then overwhelming trouble would end and Libya would eventually stabilise. He had said: “We will take off again once we, Libyans, finally decide what kind of political system we really want.”

The man, in his 50s, was returning to his native city from the tranquillity of London with a mission: To rebuild the family business his father was forced to desert when he had to run for his life in total fear of the vicious ‘People Committees’ widely unleashed by the then ruler, Muammar Gaddafi, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Libyan man was equally full of hope and confidence about Libya’s future. I wished him well and we agreed to keep in touch.

I left him with a lot of anxiety that day. Just a week back, the country’s prime minister, Ali Zeidan, was seized in the early hours while still in his bed. The kidnappers were reportedly men belonging to a former rebel group ‘loosely affiliated’ to Libya’s Interior Ministry, known as the Libyan Revolutionary Operation Room. Zeidan, after all, was legitimately elected and was officially inaugurated earlier that year.

The other major incident that happened earlier that same week was when US Delta Force Commandos successfully managed to abduct Al Qaida affiliate, Nazih Abdul Hamid Al Ruqai, better-known as Anas Al Libi — after almost three decades on the run. Al Libi is believed to have been close to Osama Bin Laden and accused of taking part in the deadly bombing of the two American embassies in West Africa in 1998.

The immediate interpretation was to connect the two incidents, as Zeidan’ seizure was suggested to be a reaction to Al Libi’s abduction. Shortly after these two incidents, many global businesses, including giant American and French oil companies, began preparation to hastily move to neighbouring Malta to carry on with their operations.

These incidents should have been considered as clear indications of what direction the country was taking. The writing was clearly there on the wall.

Since late 2013, the security decline and political chaos in Libya have rapidly increased, giving the world a clear message that the country was on its way down to the abyss. In fact, my Libyan friend has since returned to London. He phoned me last November and explained how he miraculously managed to escape from Tripoli. “Libya,” he said, “is now the most dangerous place on earth.”

Libya has basically become now the second-most chaotic place after Syria, for attacks on neighbouring countries, particularly Tunisia and Egypt, as well as Europe. It is now absolutely clear that Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has established for itself an ‘enclave’ around the coastal city of Sirte. It is feared this new development will provide it with valuable facilities to train, raise funds (from sale of oil) and plan attacks in the neighbourhood and possibly across the Mediterranean.

Somehow, in the mid of the chaos, Daesh managed to cease, last year, a strip of land around the city of Sirte and it seems the first scouts to have arrived from Syria and Iraq, relocated themselves there. So far, Daesh has succeeded in launching attacks on Libyan cities, including Tripoli and Benghazi, as well as some specific oil installations.

It is estimated that Daesh has been able, until now, in a relatively short period, to recruit between 4,000-6,000 extremists, mostly from Tunisia and some from Iraq, Sudan and Egypt. Hundreds others are being recruited from impoverished sub-Saharan African countries to the south, induced by large cash payments. Daesh has now managed to create a most convenient second base, after Syria — a task it had started in 2014.

With the absence of any central authority in the country, Libya is currently swamped with sophisticated weapons over its vast territories, with Daesh recruits freely moving around and training in the country’s north. Libya’s geographic location makes it now as dangerous a place as Syria to its neighbours. In fact, its proximity to southern Europe, makes its threat much more potent than previously thought. With its base in Sirte, it is geographically closer to the West than its bases in Syria’s Raqqa or Iraq’s Mosul.

On Libya’s western borders, Tunisia has taken drastic precautions by completing the first part of a security barrier of wide ditches in an attempt to protect itself from terrorist attacks similar to the ones carried out last year in Tunis and Sousse. Whether this will provide Tunisia with the required security cover remains to be seen. The longest border Libya shares to the west is with Algeria (989km), but the authorities there have their own fight with Islamists for many years, within their borders and are believed to be better-prepared to face Daesh.

Egypt, to the east of Libya, is also a potential target for Daesh, but President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi’s government is waging its own war against the Islamists in the country.

So, if the current situation continues, Libya will rapidly become as dangerously chaotic as Syria.

Mustapha Karkouti – gulfnews.com

There are between 3,000 and 6,500 fighters with the so-called Islamic State (IS) now based in Libya and the number is likely to grow, according to UN Special Representative Martin Kobler.  Most, he said, were non-Libya Arabs and many had come to Libya recently from Syria and Iraq, taking advantage of the political vacuum in the country.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday in Madrid with Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, he warned that as IS found itself under growing pressure in Syria and Iraq, more would arrive. He warned too that IS could well be getting money from illegal sales of oil from Libyan fields under its control, although it had already resorted to the more simple funding method of theft.

Given the threat from IS, plus the humanitarian crisis where an estimated 1.3 million Libyans now require food aid, the Presidency Council and the House of Representatives had to assume their responsibilities and appoint a national unity government, Kobler said.

It would, he believed have between 12 and 14 members. The Spanish foreign minister said he believed that this could happen on Sunday, 14 February.

Kobler also reiterated that sanctions against those trying to prevent the appointment of a national unity government are not on the UN agenda at present, although the Europeans and Americans thinking about it. He also restated that security in Tripoli and the fight against IS had to be undertaken by Libyan not foreign forces, although the international community would provide support.

One of his main concerns now, however, was of “the political process being overtaken” by military issues.

Kobler’s statement about IS fighters in Libya differs from that coming from Sirte. While sources there also speak of increasing numbers of fighters, and particularly senior figures, moving from Syria and Iraq, they point out that the largest numbers there at present are from North Africa, particularly Tunisia. However, they also say that recently there have been significant increases in those from African Sahel states and Sub-Saharan Africa.

libyaherald.com

The Royal Air Force(RAF) is reportedly already flying missions over Libya even prior to any invitation from the Libyan Government of National Accord(GNA) whose term has not even started.

The North Atlantic Council (NAC) at the level of defence ministers is meeting at Nato headquarters in Brussels this week to discuss where there are wars, currently just under 20, in the world. A decision on whether or not to start a bombing campaign in Libya is one of the top items on the agenda.

Most important from an Isis point of view, is Libya’s civil war. The political situation has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous, a clichè reflecting the decision of Libya’s United Nations-created ‘unity’ government to move out of exile in Tunisia – not to Libya, but further away, to Morocco.

Conjured into being by the UN in December, the grandly-named Government of National Accord (GNA) is supposed to unify the country, end the civil war, staunch migration and crush Isis.

In fact, this ‘unity’ government is doing nothing of the kind. It consists of a nine-strong presidency council chosen by ‘Libya Dialogue’, a negotiating body much of which the UN itself appointed. Both Libya’s existing, warring governments have already rejected it: the House of Representatives, the internationally-recognised government in Tobruk, voted it down last month while its rival General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli announced its members face arrest if they set foot in the capital.

Even the present regime in Tunisia, it seems, is uncomfortable at hosting this ‘virtual government’, hence, its decision on February 3 to move from a hotel in Tunis to a hotel in the Moroccan seaside resort of Skhirat.

Tunisia’s discomfort though comes more in part courtesy of Rached Ghannouchi, president of Tunisia’s Ennahda Islamist party, anxious not to offend his fellow Islamists, notably his close friend of decades, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, who controls the Tripoli Mitiga Airport and who supports the Islamist GNC.

In the middle of this uncomfortable storm is Fayez Seraj, until December a middling Tripoli businessman-cum-politician with no real enemies and no real political clout. He was chosen not by the Libyan people but by UN envoy Martin Kobler to lead the GNA as Prime Minister.

The move to Morocco was the main subject of debate by the presidency members in Tunis, with some arguing the switch should be to Malta, a move that may come to pass in what looks like a prolonged period of exile.

But the one thing this so-called government will not do stuck in exile is fix Libya’s problems. Isis continues to take advantage of Libya’s chaos to establish themselves. Creating three governments where there were two by the UN will not change this.

American military power can without doubt crush Isis and heavy hints have been dropped last week, led by the Pentagon declaring it has operatives in Libya seeking “partnerships” with militias.

In Rome, also last week, in the second multilateral meeting in two months on Isis in Libya, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the last thing anyone wants “is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars in oil revenue”.

Interestingly, the Pentagon ‘partnership’ with local militias recently seems to have not been agreed with the UN. So it appears some formations may be thinking they do not want to be part of the UN peace process if they get a better deal from the Americans.

Enter Italy. Its Defence Minister, Roberta Pinotti, said there was “total agreement” that a Libya unity government should ask for help to fight militants before it could be given – to avoid fuelling “jihadist propaganda” of yet another “Western invasion”.

Deadlines for such a unity government are set by the UN and regularly pass their dates without comment, the latest one being February 15.

According to the UN, international action against Isis can happen only if the GNA can get to Tripoli and then issue a formal invitation for the strikes. But, due to the security situation, they cannot get to Tripoli also because, for the Libyan people, the GNA has zero legitimacy based in a third country. Another Catch 22 for Libya again.

Nato and its allies destroying Isis first by air wherever it exists in Libya, even Iraq and Syria, is the only option left and sooner or later that will mean boots on the ground from Nato and its Arab allies.

Can America’s generals, allegedly at odds with Barack Obama, persuade their Commander in Chief, who seems only obsessed with humanitarian aspects in the Mena region, to take decisive military action? Let’s hope so. It seems unlikely for the moment.

timesofmalta.com

Groups of Islamic State fighters are quitting their bases in Libya fearing Western air strikes and heading south, posing a new threat to countries in Africa’s Sahel region including Niger and Chad, officials and intelligence sources said.

The ultra-hardline movement that has seized large areas of Syria and neighbouring Iraq has also amassed thousands of fighters along a coastal strip in Libya, where it has taken the city of Sirte and attacked oil infrastructure.

African and Western governments fear that the vast, lawless Sahel band to the south will become its next target, and say any large regional presence could be used as a springboard for wider attacks.

“ISIS (Islamic State) are moving towards southern Libya to avoid the likely air strikes from the European coalition,” said Colonel Mahamane Laminou Sani, director of documentation and military intelligence for Niger’s armed forces.

“If something like that happens, the whole Sahel is (affected),” he added on the sidelines of the annual U.S.-led ‘Flintlock’ counter-terrorism exercises in Senegal.

The arid region stretching from the Sahara Desert to the Sudanian Savanna, is already home to roving al Qaeda (AQIM) fighters who were scattered but not defeated by a 2012 French military intervention in Mali.

A closed-door seminar for senior military officials in Dakar this week organised as part of Flintlock is focusing on the militant challenge in northwest Africa which “is becoming more lethal, more complicated and more menacing,” according to a document handed to participants.

The United States military has its own Africa Command, focused on combatting militancy and other threats, though it says it is rarely involved in fighting, concentrates on training and is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany.

Niger and Chad are already grappling with incursions in the south from militants loyal to Nigeria’s Boko Haram which is allied to the Islamic State.

A Western intelligence source on the sidelines of the conference said Islamic State fighters had already entered Niger, although this could not be independently verified.

CHECKPOINTS IN CHAD

Chad, a Western military ally in the region which denounced NATO air strikes in Libya in 2011 and opposes new ones, also expressed concern.

“We are informing traditional and religious leaders in the north so they are prepared to prevent Daesh (Islamic State) from coming into our territory,” said Colonel Khassim Moussa, head of Chad’s Special Antiterrorism Group on the sidelines of the conference.

Checkpoints had been set up near the border, he added.

Islamic State fighters first gained a stake in Libya’s eastern city of Derna in 2014, but were mostly driven out in the summer of 2015 by rival Islamist fighters and residents opposed to foreign jihadists.

A year ago, they seized Sirte, the hometown of Libya’s ousted strongman Muammar Gaddafi, and consolidated power there. The group wants to impose its harsh brand of Islam in caliphate across the Muslim world and beyond.

A Sirte resident said on Thursday that some districts were being evacuated and fighters were building defences around the city amid fears of Western attacks.

U.S. and European officials say they are looking at ways to counter Islamic State in Libya, including possible air strikes, though officials say efforts could be held up by political turmoil in the Opec member.

Laurence Aida Ammour, a consultant and Sahel security expert who briefed participants in Dakar, said air strikes would cause a “mercury effect”, pushing ISIS fighters in various directions, including southwards like small globules of the element.

“If they go south then there’s a highway open to Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Benin,” she said, adding that only Libya’s powerful Misrata militias could stop them.

Col. Moussa said he expected NATO to help protect Chad’s northern border. “It’s them who got involved in Libya, it’s up to them to fix it.”

euters.com

An impending war in Libya may draw the North African nation into its last war as a nation.

Five years after the United States led the military campaign in Libya that deposed long-time dictator Muammar Qadhafi and supposedly liberated the North African nation, war drums are beating again.

This time, the Islamic State is the new Qadhafi—but it’s much worse by comparison.

Top national security officials are pressing U.S. President Barack Obama to open another front against the macabre terrorists in Libya, where many Islamic State top commanders and operatives are seeking refuge from the ongoing airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. Islamic State leaders are also redirecting most of the flow of incoming recruits to Libya instead of Iraq and Syria.

U.S. intelligence estimated last week that there could be as many as 6,000 Islamic State fighters in Libya—more than double what the experts had previously estimated.

The Obama administration is reluctant to engage militarily in yet another war in yet another Muslim Middle Eastern country where things have gone wrong before. But the case for intervening “has been laid out by virtually every department,” and “the White House just has to decide,” an anonymous senior State Department official told the New York Times.

Secretary of State John Kerry warned last week, “The last thing in the world you want is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars of oil revenue.” He was speaking in Rome at a conference of 23 nations that met to discuss the growing threat of the Islamic State in Libya.

Libya’s Significance

The Islamic State has revolutionized non-state jihadism by attaining state-like wealth and power—Iraq (especially Mosul) and Syria (especially Raqqa) being the most notable examples. It has both the experience and the audacity to carve out a self-sustaining sanctuary for itself in lawless, yet oil-rich, Libya.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry warned about the inevitable devolution of governance in Libya even before Qadhafi was killed during nato’s Operation Unified Protector five years ago. He wrote in October 2011 that “the government that replaces Qadhafi will be a thousand times worse.”

Since Qadhafi’s death in 2011, Libya has had eight different prime ministers. Today, there’s practically no functioning government running the nation. On paper, there are two governments: an internationally recognized one in Tobruk and an illegitimate one in the capital Tripoli. That state of affairs is in many ways much worse than Syria, where President Bashar Assad still receives international recognition and support from nations like Russia and Iran.

Also making things worse in Libya than in Syria is that the Islamic State can tap into a much greater supply of oil—20 times greater! Already, the terrorists have seized vast oil fields in Libya.

The most significant concern regarding the Islamic State’s growing influence in Libya is its proximity to Europe. Reconnaissance drones and satellites have shown militant fortifications in the Islamic State’s stronghold in Sirte, along the Mediterranean coastline. This location not only makes a valuable sanctuary for the jihadists, it provides a potent launching pad for terrorist attacks in North Africa and Europe.

On several occasions, the Islamic State has singled out Rome as a primary target for conquest. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared in June 2014: “If you [Muslims] hold to it, you will conquer Rome and own the world, if Allah wills.” Islamic State militants see Libya as the gateway to Europe, at just 400 miles away.

In response, European leaders proposed an Italian-led European force of about 6,000 troops to stabilize Libya. But “time is running out to stabilize war-torn Libya,” Al Jazeera paraphrased Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni saying. Some leaders would rather delay intervention until a unity government is formed in Libya. But establishing a coherent government, if it actually happens, will take time—time which the Islamic State will gladly use to consolidate its gains in Libya.

German diplomat and the United Nation’s special representative to Libya, Martin Kobler, told Spiegel Online that the Islamic State in Libya can be defeated, “but there isn’t much time left.”

Germany was not involved in nato’s assault in 2011. Many Germans both then and now believe nato should not have intervened in Libya. Regardless, Kobler believes something has to be done:

We simply can’t give up on Libya. There are 6 million people living there, and we need to help them. Of course, the presence of [the Islamic State] there is also a threat to Europe. …

I think it was a mistake to have left Libya alone after 2011. We got ahead of ourselves. And that is precisely why it is so important now that we not abandon the country again.

While the Obama administration might intervene militarily in Libya in some capacity, it doesn’t appear as urgent as some of the top national security officials even in the United States. And it certainly doesn’t appear as urgent as the leading officials in Europe.

Don’t expect Europe to give up on Libya. It is increasingly wary of radical Islam. It is facing a growing threat of terrorism.

However Europe responds to the Islamic State threat today, the Bible indicates that the ultimate military invention in Libya will be part of a “whirlwind” attack by Europe on Islamist nations in the Middle East and North Africa (Daniel 11:40-43). Specifically, it will be an attack on Iran and Iranian-allied or -affiliated nations. The chaos in Libya today makes it vulnerable to outside powers, particularly those with vested Islamist aspirations in the region, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In his October 2011 article, Mr. Flurry wrote about Iran’s shady involvement in Libya’s problems:

Now America and the West have paved the way for another Iranian victory in Libya. We are rejoicing about the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi, while we should be mourning. Libyan chaos is now the ideal setting for Iran to bring that nation into its deadly terrorist web. The government that replaces Qadhafi will be a thousand times worse.

The good news about Europe’s prophesied “whirlwind” intervention in Libya is that it will be the last invasion Libya will ever face. Our free booklet The King of the South will thoroughly explain that in greater detail.

thetrumpet.com

A former Brigadier-General in the Tunisian Armed Forces and Head of the Tunisian Centre for Comprehensive Security Studies Mokhtar Ben Nasr has said that military intervention in Libya is a matter of time and Tunisia must prepare for all possibilities.

In remarks published by Tunis Afrique Presse, Ben Nasr said that the Tunisian army and security units are fully prepared and have increased joint patrols and coordination between the various units, which will make Tunisia safer in the event of military action in Libya.

He added that mock operations conducted in hospitals in the south of Tunisia are part of preparations ahead of possible military action in Libya.

Ben Nasr also warned that the deterioration of the situation in Libya could have a direct impact on security and stability in Tunisia. He urged utmost vigilance insofar as terrorists could exploit the fragile situation to conduct terrorist attacks in the country.

President Beji Caid Essebsi on Thursday warned the international community against military intervention in Libya and called on them to take into account the neighbouring countries.

middleeastmonitor.com