Clashes west of Tripoli in the Ajilat area between Libya Dawn forces, mainly from Sabratha, and local units linked to the Libyan National Army (LNA) continued intermittently during the day, according to an official from Sabratha Municipal Council, but had again subsided this evening.

There are reports that at least ten people, including civilians, have been killed since the clashes started on Saturday.

Sabratha Media Centre are claiming that pro-Dawn forces have now taken control of Ras Yusuf and west Ajilat, focus of much of the fighting in the past four days and viewed as strongly pro-Qaddafi regime. It also has published photos of what it claims are vehicles captured from LNA-supported forces. It says that in the past 24 hours, five fighters with those forces were killed, four Warshefanis and one from Taweela, while it lost one man.  He has been named as Shaban Al Atrash, from Ajilat.

It further claims that the road from Sabratha to Zuwara is now open.

Meanwhile, the road between Zawia and Tripoli has reopened although officials in Tripoli are warning people not to use it because it is still unsafe. Residents from Zawia are seen as particularly at risk.

Reports earlier during the day that the pro-Islamist head of Sabratha Military Council, Taher Al-Gharbali who also leads his own Gharbali Brigade, had been kiiled in the fighting yesterday, turned out to be untrue when he appeared on TV.

Officials say troops killed at least three militants during a counter-terrorism operation in northern Algeria on Tuesday.

Algeria’s Ministry of National Defense released a statement saying the incident occurred Tuesday morning “during a cordon and combing operation at the village of Ouled H’mida, located in Baghlia,” a town in the northern province of Boumerdès.

Security forces recovered three Kalashnikov machine guns with magazines, 135 rounds of ammunition and nine mobile phones, the statement reads.

While much of Algeria is considered relatively secure, militant groups are known to enjoy safe havens in the north of the country, where they have clashed with security forces in multiple incidents throughout the year.

At least two Algerian soldiers were killed in a militant ambush in the northern woods of Colo, in the Skikda province, during an anti-terrorism operation in mid-August, and in July at least 11 soldiers were killed in an ambush sprung by militants in a forested area of Ain Delfa, 150 miles southeast of the capital Algiers.

Al-Qaida in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb is an Algeria-based Sunni Muslim jihadist group that, according to the U.S. National Counter-Terrorism Center, employs “conventional terrorist tactics, including guerrilla-style ambushes, mortar, rocket, and [Improvised Explosive Device] attacks.”

In September 2014, Jund al-Khilafah fi Ard al-Jazayer, or “Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria,” split from AQIM and declared allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Militants from the IS affiliate in October 2014 kidnapped and beheaded 55-year-old Frenchman Hervé Gourdel in Algeria, depicting the execution in an online video. The militants said France had failed to respond to a demand to drop out of the U.S.-led coalition against IS forces in Iraq and Syria.

The European Union is considering helping Libya strengthen its borders and disarm militias if a government of national unity is formed in the war-torn country, a EU document seen by Reuters says.

The document, produced by officials working for the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, was sent to European capitals on Monday, the same day Libya’s internationally-recognised parliament rejected a United Nations plan for such a government..

EU diplomats discussed the paper in a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday in preparation for a debate on this topic at the next regular EU foreign affairs meeting scheduled on Nov. 16.

Six options are listed to strengthen security in the North-African country, ranging from actions possible “regardless of the political situation” in Libya, and others that would instead require a green-light from Libyan authorities once a government of national unity is formed.

All EU actions would be conducted in agreement with the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and as a complement to its operations.

If Libya’s factions agree on a unity government, the EU would start detailed talks with the Libyans within 90 days for a military or civilian mission focused on the “demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration” of militiamen in the country, the document says.

As soon as a deal is reached, the EU could send civilians to monitor ceasefires among the factions in the field. It could also use local personnel trained by European officers.

If a peace deal holds, the EU action “would be of modest scale and limited to support to a mediation unit, provision of aerial monitoring and possibly the provision of civilian monitors,” the document says, adding a military option would be considered if ceasefires do not prove effective.

Protecting Libyan strategic infrastructures such as oil facilities or government buildings is also an option for the “medium to longer term”.

PROTECTING BORDERS

Even without a political accord in Libya, the EU plans to step up its efforts to protect the borders of a country that has become a crossroad for African migrants en route to Europe and militant Islamist groups carrying out attacks in the region.

The EU wants to relaunch its Border Assistance Mission in Libya, which is currently working at a minimum level and whose mandate expires in November. It also plans a wider “border security initiative” in the region, the document says, involving Tunisia and Niger.

One option would be to expand the naval military mission in the Mediterranean Sea, which is already deployed in international waters there, into Libyan waters.

EU states will have to approve these proposals. Individual sanctions against Libyans also remain on the table to pressure “spoilers” of the peace process, but at the moment this is not the priority, an EU official told Reuters.

The plan comes with an aid package of 100 million euros to be disbursed immediately after a deal is reached and a promise to enlarge the support considerably if security conditions in the country improve and allow the return of international workers, the paper says.

Since Syria’s brutal civil war began four and a half years ago, 4 million Syrians have fled their country in the largest migration of people since the Second World War. Recent Russian airstrikes on rebel-held territory have prompted a further exodus of people into Europe. Now, another, smaller, group is leaving Syria — bands of fighters with the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS — to seek out a firmer foothold in North Africa.

A senior commander in the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, who leads several pro-regime military units in Syria, told International Business Times, “We’ve heard info that [ISIS fighters] are leaving. Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIS] wants a foothold in Africa.”

The reason ISIS fighters are leaving is twofold. While ISIS has not been the main target of Russia’s warplanes, the militants face a threat from the increased Russian and Iranian presence in the country.

“The order we have now is to destroy Daesh and push them to the Iraqi border to kill them there,” the Hezbollah commander said.

There are reports of ISIS fighters who have been so desperate to leave Syria following Russia’s aerial campaign that they have shaved off their beards in order to disguise themselves as women as they cross the border.

Fear is not the only motivator. ISIS leaders have been calling for additional fighters in Libya, a virtually lawless country that could open doors for the group accross North Africa. Flush with weapons and in the chaotic throes of civil war, Libya has unmanned border crossings make it the perfect breeding ground for militant groups, including ISIS.

Last week, ISIS claimed that 750 Tunisian ISIS fighters were heading to the Libyan coastal city of Derna, where the militant group had recently suffered setbacks, according to an audio recording of Tunisian militants.

ISIS has issued a blanket call for its fighters to make their way to Libya; this applies to both new recruits who are unable to get to Syria or Iraq, and those who have already fought with the militant group in its so-called caliphate and wish to continue the battle in their home countries.

A source with close, family ties to the militant group told IBT that Tunisian Islamic State fighters were departing Syria through Turkey before moving on to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, an ISIS stronghold. From there, “getting into Libya is not hard,” said Harleen Gambhir, counterterrorism analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, adding that ISIS in Libya is “in desperate need of fighters.”

Gambhir’s assessment follows Libyan ISIS leader Abul-Mughīrah al-Qahtānī’s declaration in the September issue of Dabiq, the group’s online propaganda magazine: “The Islamic State here in Libya is still young. It is in great need of every Muslim who can come, especially medical, sharia and administrative personnel, in addition to fighters.”

“ISIS has been recruiting from Tunisia, from Libya already,” Gambhir said. “But the movement of a bunch of fighters from Syria to Libya would signify a much more intense effort there.”

IBT was not able to confirm the number of ISIS fighters entering Libya from Syria, but there have been several reports of ISIS fighters leaving Syria to return to their home countries, some of them claiming to have done so of their own accord.

Some experts suggest, however, that the fighters did not make the decision to leave on their own.

“I doubt the fighters could leave Syria of their own will to pursue such a project. They would need a higher order to authorize it,” said Middle East Forum Research Fellow Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi.

The militant group had already begun sending reinforcements to Libya two months ago, when ISIS reportedly sent some of its leaders from Iraq to do both military and social outreach training there. These leaders were likely part of ISIS’ elite military force, Jaish al-Khalifa; roughly 4,000-strong, the unit is deployed to areas with the greatest need, and can take on the tasks of combat, strategy and helping the group to expand its territory.

ISIS has been active and gaining ground in Libya since last October, when a militant group in Derna with former ties to al Qaeda pledged allegiance to ISIS “Caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Since then, it has suffered severe losses in Derna from local resistance but has managed to expand its hold to other areas in the war-torn country, specifically Sirte, the late dictator’s Moammar Gadhafi’s oil-rich birthplace.

The desert area on the border of Libya and Tunisia has been home to jihadist training camps for years and remains a “huge blind spot” for Tunisia’s security forces, Andrew Engel, an Africa analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy recently told IBT.

As of January, at least one camp on the Tunisian side of border belonged to ISIS. Tunisian fighters would train in Libya before they went to fight in Syria. In February, the Tunisian government said it had apprehended 9,000 ISIS supporters headed for the camp, but 540 militants already had completed their training and left the country.

Tunisia is the largest source of ISIS fighters, with an estimated 8,000 people who have left to fight with militants in Iraq and Syria. “The muhājirīn [foreign fighters] come from all places … especially from Africa, the Islamic Maghrib [western North Africa], Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula and occasionally from Western nations,” al-Qahtānī said. Roughly half of those fighters have been killed in combat.

Nearly 3,000 people have already been killed in Libya since January 2014, and hundreds more since Gadhafi’s downfall in 2011, according to Libya Body Count, a website committed to documenting the name, location and method of every violent casualty in Libya. The rise of militant groups like ISIS will only add to Libya’s chaos and ensure the conflict’s spillover into its neighbors, Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria.

An increased ISIS presence in Libya could open up the entire North African arena for the militants and is by far the most strategic position for ISIS to have in Africa. Even without this new influx of fighters, ISIS has been able to coordinate attacks from Libya in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and Tunisia over the past six months.

Libya is such an attractive proposition for the group because the country “contains a well of resources that cannot run dry,” al-Qahtānī told Dabiq. It is also the promise of what Libya offers to the Libyan ISIS leader as the meeting point between Europe and Africa.

“[Libya is] a gate to the African desert stretching to a number of African countries. The control of the Islamic State over this region will lead to economic breakdowns for Italy and the rest of the European states.”

ibtimes.com

Warplanes carried out air strikes on the Libyan city of Sirte targeting areas controlled by fighters loyal to Islamic State militants, a witness in the city said on Tuesday.

There was no immediate report of casualties or damage from the strikes on Monday. Forces from Libya’s internationally recognized government have bombed Islamist militants in the past. But an official was not immediately available to comment on the Sirte attack.

Islamic State has made Sirte its base in Libya, where fighting between two rival governments and their armed allies has allowed Islamist militants to gain ground in the chaos.

The army has bolstered its security measures on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal in light of the shelling on Monday that saw the death of eight extremists, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Tuesday.

A high-ranking military source confirmed to the daily that the army’s shelling had targeted members of the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Nusra Front.

It also clarified that the military shelled the armed groups with artillery, not helicopters as media reports had speculated.

“The army has bolstered its measures in the area to thwart any attack or ambush by armed groups,” the source added.

The military shells the positions of al-Nusra on Arsal’s outskirts and the Islamic State on Ras Baalbek’s outskirts “on a daily basis,” it explained, adding that Monday’s shelling was “significant” because it incurred a number of casualties among the gunmen’s ranks.

Eight people were killed and many wounded on Monday when the army targeted militant positions along the eastern border with war-torn Syria.

The army frequently shells the militants’ positions in the border area, while Hizbullah fighters have confronted them on the Syrian side.

The border area is also home to informal Syrian refugee camps largely beyond the reach of authorities or aid agencies.

In August 2014, Islamic State and Nusra Front militants seized some 20 Lebanese soldiers and police officers during a brief cross-border raid on the town of Arsal. The extremists have executed four of them and are still holding the rest.

naharnet.com

Six cells sending Jihadists to hotbeds of tension were dismantled last week, the Interior Ministry Monday announced in a press release.  The cells are made up of 27 Takfiris, including 5 women.

The operations were conducted by the National Guard counter-terrorism units in the governorates of Tataouine, Medenine, Gabès, Sidi Bouzid and Ariana.

Members of a family involved in the events of Ain Tebournouk (Nabeul) in December 2006 were also arrested while attempting to cross illegally to Libya to “join terrorist groups and get training before heading back to Tunisia,” the ministry indicated.

tap.info.tn

Libya’s internationally-recognized parliament refused to sign the United Nations’ proposal for peace on Monday. The government spokesman Farraj Abu Hashem said leaders in Tobruk did not accept the deal for a unity government because it included amendments added by Islamists without its consent.

However, the UN said that “this is the final text.”

“We are not reopening the text and our hope remains that all sides will agree to the text for the good of the people of Libya,” UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

The nation became politically unstable after Western forces toppled late dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The country was then divided between Islamist-led forces, based in the capital Tripoli and the internationally-recognized government in Tobruk.

Tobruk smells conspiracy

On October 8, the UN’s Special Envoy for Libya, Bernardino Leon, announced a proposal to foster unity between the warring factions along with a list of candidates to head the new body.

However, Tobruk politicians were against some conditions, including giving the unity government power to fire all senior Libyan officials not unanimously agreed upon by its members. The leaders thought this was a ploy to remove General Khalifa Hifter, whose army has been fighting the Islamists.

The Islamist-led government in Tripoli, on the other hand, said it was not officially rejecting the deal, but “signing it would lead to further complications.” It also felt that there were not sufficient guarantees that Islamic law would be implemented.

Meanwhile, Western countries and Arab nations released a statement on Monday, asking the rival groups to accept the UN proposals “immediately” to end instability in Libya.

The statement, published by foreign ministers of Algeria, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Qatar, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the US and the EU , called “on all parties in the Libyan political dialogue to immediately adopt the political agreement negotiated by the Special Representative to the United Nations, Mr. [Bernardino] Leon.”

Egyptians began on Sunday voting in the country’s first parliamentary elections since former President Mohammed Morsi was ousted in 2013, amid voters’ reluctance to cast their votes for Islamists or officials of former President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s long-awaited legislative election, with some 55 million eligible voters in total, is held in two stages covering the country’s 27 provinces. The first stage is held on Oct. 18 and 19 while the second will be on Nov. 22 and 23.

The banned Muslim Brotherhood swept the previous parliament along with Salafists or Sunni fundamentalists. The previous assembly was dissolved in June 2012.

The Salafist Al-Nour Party is the only Islamist political party in the election. Al-Nour won about a quarter of the votes in the country’s first post-Mubarak parliamentary polls held in late 2011, coming second after the Brotherhood.

As Religion-based parties are banned according to the 2014 constitution, Al-Nour always denies its religious affiliations and defended itself as a party with religious background.

Kareem Al-Senoty, retired engineer, expressed his rejection for any religious-based nominees in the new legislature. “It’s my duty to vote and prevent the success of the Islamists as lawmakers.”

“We need to separate religion from politics; we are a civil rather than a religious country,” Al-Senoty, who was accompanied by his two daughters in Kafr-Abdoo center of the coastal city of Alexandria, told Xinhua.

Reserving 75 percent of the seats for the individuals will likely make the new assembly vulnerable for the Islamists and the wealthy remnants of the former President Hosni Mubarak’s dissolved National and Democratic Party, and threatens with using the political capitals in affecting laws to be endorsed.

“I will give my voice for anyone, even if I don’t know him very well, provided that he or she isn’t affiliate to the former President Mubarak’s regime or the Brotherhood,” Sanaa Yassin, 42 housewife said.

“We went through two uprisings to avoid the old faces who turned the country into perplexity,” she said, adding that the Egyptians deserve better servers.

More than 27 million voters from 14 provinces are expected to cast their ballots on Sunday and Monday in the first phase, according to the country’s High Electoral Committee.

The polls will mark the last milestone in Egypt’s three-stage roadmap to democracy, after adopting the new constitution and holding the presidential elections.

Egyptians are sick and tired of an ailing economy and insecurity that followed its two uprising, hoping the new parliament will bolster the country’s pillars and bring laws that can improve their conditions.

“It’s duty of all the Egyptians to show up and cast their votes for the new legislature to build our country on legal bases,” said, Mahmoud Mokhtar, 52 years old, science teacher, while casting his vote in the Giza district of Imbaba.

“I came to vote since I feel the challenges and dangers surrounding my country, and that I hope my participation in the election will strengthen Egypt,” Mokhtar added.

According to the voting process, nearly 16,000 judges will supervise the process, while other 87 international and local non-governmental organizations got the licenses for observation.

The early hours of the voting saw a low turnout, with the coastal city of Alexandria reading the biggest rate of participation, a spokesperson for the High Electoral Committee, said.

He added the female turnout is fourfold of that of the males, while the old-age categories topped the scene.

Due to threats of regular militant attacks since the ouster of former Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, at least 185,000 military troops will secure the election as the polls open, official news agency MENA reported. The Interior Ministry said they will be joined by 180,000 police.

In the early hours on Sunday, security forces defused two bombs planted near a balloting station in Fayoum province. Locals also reported a dubious object near the fence of a primary school grouping many election committees. No casualties have been reported, MENA added.

Later in the day, another four bombs were dismantled in Giza district of Kerdasa, a crowded region with Islamists, state-run Ahram website reported.

In a TV speech to the nation Saturday, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on all Egyptians to head to the ballot boxes. He also urged the armed forces and the Interior Ministry to secure the voting process.

The new-elected parliament will be made up of 596 seats, of which 448 will be elected as independents, 120 will go to winner-takes-all party lists, and the rest 28 will be presidential appointees.

A number of members of the House of Representatives, including Essa Al-Araibi and HoR spokesman Faraj Buhashim, have said that they will agree to the government leadership proposals from UN Special Envoy Bernardino Leon. However, they will not accept the removal of General Khalifa Hafter under any conditions.

Last week Leon named HoR member Faraj Serraj as prime minister and Ahmed Maetig, Fathi Majbri and Musa Koni as deputy prime ministers.

Following a meeting this evening with delegates from eastern tribes, notably the Obeida tribe, HoR members said that they were prepared to endorse the proposed UN-brokered agreement. Howeverm any attempt to remove Hafter was a red line for them

They also said that but only the dialogue deal  initialled by them on 11 July was acceptale.

The HoR is to reconvene today, Monday, to continue its deliberations on the Dialogue.