International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 31

International Journal on Criminology
authorities accused the Salafist group Ansar al-Sharia of being the perpetrators, although
this group denies it. A certain Libya Shield Force might also be suspects.
Since then, anarchy has reigned in the country, which has experienced regular
Jihadist attacks. Neither the legal and legitimate parliament elected on June 25, 2014, nor
the government of Abdullah al-Thani control the territory, and they have even had to retreat
to Tobruk. The coalition Fajr Libya, made up of an alliance of Islamist-backed militias,
controls the official capital, while the city of Derna has fallen into the hands of Islamic State,
which sees itself as a direct rival to Fajr Libya. Meanwhile, the Islamic Maghreb in the south
of the country provides a refuge for al-Qaeda.
The most worrying problem is obviously the wars raging simultaneously in Syria and
Iraq. At the start of the civil war, the armed opposition in Syria numbered Jihadist fighters in
its ranks who were affiliated to various movements. Among these were the Abdullah Azzam
Brigades, the al-Nusra Front (by far the most important and the most combative), and the
al-Baraa Ibn Malik Martyrdom Brigade, not to mention al-Qaeda itself, operating under
the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. However, in 2013 Islamic State and the
al-Nusra Front came into conflict with one another, which meant the latter benefited from
the al-Qaeda support that had been withdrawn from the Islamic State.
This marked the beginning of DAESH’s (Islamic State’s) spectacular rise. From
summer 2014 onwards, it established a puritan, terrorist regime straddling the two states of
eastern Syria and western Iraq, an area of eight million inhabitants. Its successes gained it
the allegiance of a few groups previously linked to al-Qaeda or dissidents of al-Qaeda, such
as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis in Egypt, Jund al-Khilafah in Algeria, and the Derna branch in
Libya. The regional threat was such that a Western-Arab coalition was set up and has been
regularly bombing DAESH since the summer of 2014.
It is impossible at this stage, while intense shockwaves are still shaking part of the
Arab-Muslim world, to predict what will come of all these developments. Even the Justice
and Development Party in Turkey has been seriously called into question since the spring of
2013, leaving a sense of doubt about the Turkish “model” on which Ennahda liked to base
itself—a doubt that is all the stronger since the Turkish attitude towards DAESH is suspect,
to say the least. Egyptian Muslims, and to a lesser degree the Tunisians, disappointed the
world when power was returned to them after a spring that was not of their making: the
Jihadists now have an increasing presence and pose a growing threat. Is it really so certain
that nations have experienced an awakening and that they will no longer give up their right
to choose who governs them? The iron law of the balance of power may cause us to have
doubts about the matter.
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