LibyaPolitics

Is Sabha attack part of IS vengeance?

Islamic State group militants have claimed responsibility for the Saturday attack on a Libyan National Army training camp in the southern city of Sabha.

In an online statement, IS said it killed or wounded 16 people in the Sabha attack, and freed inmates from a prison.

Previously, such attacks were perpetrated by people with active ties to IS, but many recent acts of terrorism have been carried out by individuals with no meaningful ties to organized extremism — so-called lone wolves.

There’s no apparent single variable driving these attackers.

After the massive defeat of the group in Iraq and Syria, where its fighters exceeded tens of thousands, these elements were dispersed. It was reminiscent of what happened in the middle of the 1990s, when al-Qaeda broke down and its fighters returned from Afghanistan to their home countries, including Libya. Those fighters then formed individual groups to carry out terrorist attacks.

The scenario seems to repeat itself with IS, where they formed smaller groups dubbed “lone wolves” and started to carry out random attacks.

The oasis town of Sabha, 650 kilometers south of Tripoli, was seized during an offensive by the LNA in 2018 to clear what the army said were militant and terrorist groups.

The battle for Tripoli is the latest bout of violence since the 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

On April 8, ISIS began “the campaign of vengeance for the blessed al-Sham Province,” claiming attacks by its affiliates around the world under this slogan.

“Vengeance for Sham,” or for the Levant, appears to be a mix of a coordinated campaign alongside opportunistic branding of attacks that would have been carried out anyway in an attempt to restate the group’s capabilities following the fall of its self-declared caliphate.

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