Government-aligned militia adds to Libya’s political turmoil

Camp 27, a military base on the shore of the Mediterranean, west of Tripoli, was an ideal spot for Muammer Gaddafi’s son Khamis and the men of his 32nd brigade to menace the nearby city of Zawiya.

Father and son are now dead, but the bearded men who have taken over Camp 27 are again threatening the Libyan people.

The Libyan Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR) is a militia answering to the Libyan parliament, the General National Congress.

The group is at the centre of a week-long battle over Tripoli’s international airport, which continued to rage on Sunday. It has the weapons, vehicles and religious zeal to defend the country against its perceived enemies. These include drug dealers, human traffickers or liberal politicians they view as having been loyal to Gaddafi.

“When you talk about the former regime, we’re talking about the men in Gaddafi’s system,” said Abdul Razzaq Dukali, an LROR member. “This place was the base for those who are now against us.”

The group’s growing entrenchment and influence shows the perils of Libya’s security vacuum, which allows armed extremists to shape the political future.

LROR is a loosely, and murkily, structured organisation, led by two Islamists, Shaaban Hadia and Adel Gharyani, according to politicians, rival militias and security officials. From the well-fortified Camp 27, the group controls a highway, crucial for supply lines to the capital as well as seaside oil installations, such as the refinery and depot in Zawiya.

Some analysts in Washington claim that the group is affiliated with al-Qaeda, a charge the fighters inside the base deny vehemently. In interviews during a visit to Camp 27, as well as meetings with civil society activists, politicians and security officials in Tripoli, LROR emerges as a secretive, hardline Islamist organisation with a political and security agenda.

“They’re just a mirage,” said a commander of another militia group. “They can’t change to become part of the political scene as a lot of them can be considered radical and extremist Islamists.”

Nonetheless, the group has repeatedly meddled in political matters, including in the brief abduction of Ali Zeidan when he was prime minister. It has also shown itself to be ruthless. After Mr Hadia was arrested by Egyptian police in January, the group responded by kidnapping six Egyptian diplomats, whom they released only when he was freed.

“They’re like mobsters,” said one Tripoli security official. “You have one mobster and he wants something done. He calls a guy here and there, and they strike and then they go home.”

They said if the Justice and Construction Party continues to stand in front of us, we will attack them and kidnap their members

More recently the group has vowed to take up arms against Khalifa Haftar, a renegade, anti-Islamist former general, for control of the eastern city of Benghazi. On June 26, members of the group stormed the Tripoli headquarters of the foreign ministry, which LROR derides as a bastion of the Gaddafi regime.

The group is playing a role in the attack by Islamist militias on the international airport in Tripoli, which was under the control of Gen Haftar. “Last warning to whoever joined or has been manipulated into the operation of evil led by the retired criminal Haftar,” the group announced on its Facebook page hours before the airport assault. “We have informed you and we take no responsibility for your blood.”

At an unannounced visit to a checkpoint along the highway connecting the capital to the Tunisian border, militia men said they were searching for drugs, weapons and illegal migrants. The group claims to have more than 10,000 members nationwide, but inside Camp 27 there were no more than a few dozen men, among them Abdel-Basset Shawish, 25, a former medical student with a loaded Glock pistol tucked into the waistband of his camouflage trousers.

“We are here with minimum resources,” he said during an interview in one of refurbished buildings in the camp, which includes equipment used to train soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. It is surrounded by minefields. “All the guns and weapons we have are from the revolution.”

Mr Shawish was among those who rose against the Gaddafi regime in Zawiya. After the toppling it, Mr Shawish says he lost interest in pursuing a medical career and joined the LROR when it coalesced in early 2013.

Mr Shawish says the men work 24-hour, three-day shifts, searching cars for contraband and handing suspects over to prosecutors. But others allege the group targets liberal activists. “They send me messages on my phone and Facebook,” said one 30-year-old female activist who has appeared unveiled on Arabic television denouncing Islamists. “They say, ‘we’re going to get you in three days.’”

One analyst said he was contacted by the group and asked to put pressure on Libya‘s Muslim Brotherhood to lobby for one candidate for prime minister over another. “They said if the Justice and Construction Party continues to stand in front of us, we will attack them and kidnap their members,” said Senussi Bsaikri, a commentator.

Members of LROR deny the accusations. But leaders of the loosely organised group may have little control over the activities of its members. “The leadership is Islamist, but the second and third tier are a huge mixture, including some criminal elements,” said Mr Bsaikri. “The truth is the leadership doesn’t have authority over the rank and file.”

The group has exploited the security vacuum to expand its influence. Mr Shawish said the organisation has set up a network of informants that tips them off about suspicious activities in the area. “They don’t trust the police,” he says. “The people look to us as those who helped the revolution.”