Courcy’s Intelligence Brief
Increasing rift between Libya's Islamists and liberals
Libya’s Islamist element is headed by the president of the military council in Tripoli, Abdelhakim Belhaj and his equivalent in Sirte, Bani al-Walid Ismail as-Slab. The Islamists represent the majority of Libyan rebels, and yet they feel that the National Transitional Council is not giving them a fair share of the ministerial posts.
The growing disillusion with the NTC was expressed by spiritual leader Sheikh Ali as-Salabi on 12 September, when he accused the Executive Council of stealing the people’s money and demanded the resignation of council leader Mahmoud Jibril. He complained that decisions over finance, health and other key services were being monopolized by the secular liberals.
According to sources close to Jibril, the Islamists have demanded five ministries in the new government of 20 ministers but Jibril has only agreed to give them one.
The London-based pan-Arab al-Quds al-Arabi published an editorial on 14 September putting the blame for the split squarely on the liberals. It wrote: “It is our view that the Libyan NTC has committed many mistakes. Most prominent was its arrogant and conceited behaviour, not only towards Islamists who have assumed the greater burden in the revolution against the deposed dictatorial regime, but also towards Libya’s neighbours such as Algeria and Egypt, whom it accused of backing Gaddafi. They even took such a stance against superpower China.”
A Washington Post report of 14 September put the accepted Western view, saying: “Libya’s Islamist groups appear to have emerged from [Gaddafi’s] reign as the best-organized among political groups, and secularists among Libya’s new leaders appear determined not to alienate them.”
On the same day, America’s senior diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey D Feltman, said that while he is monitoring the growing influence of Islamists on the interim government he does not consider that influence to be a significant threat. He said: “We aren’t concerned that one group is going to dominate the aftermath of what has been a common struggle by the Libyan people to open the door to a better future.”
Our Arab sources are not so sanguine.