The Grinding Fight to Root Out ISIS in a Battered Libya

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    "Frederic Wehrey"
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In The Media

The Grinding Fight to Root Out ISIS in a Battered Libya

In Libya, the struggle to root out the Islamic State goes beyond the battlefield to the broken state left behind by Muammar Qaddafi and the lack of international support following the 2011 uprising.

By Frederic Wehrey

Published on Aug 10, 2016

Source: New Yorker

In late July, on a tree-lined avenue of villas in Sirte, the coastal home town of the late dictator Muammar Qaddafi, Islamic State snipers pinned down a group of Libyan militiamen. It was early evening, a drawn-out time when the fighting usually starts to pick up. The figures of young men crouching or darting across the street with rocket-propelled grenades cast long shadows in the soft light. Amid the snap and rattle of automatic gunfire, the stereo from a nearby Toyota played an Islamic chant known as a nashid that seemed at once elegiac and fortifying...

Read the full article at the New Yorker.

About the Author

Frederic Wehrey

Senior Fellow, Middle East Program

Frederic Wehrey is a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on governance, conflict, and security in Libya, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf.

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