Qaddafi's Muslim Problem

"Qaddafi and Militant Islamism: Unprecedented Conflict" by Yehudit Ronen, in Middle Eastern Studies (Oct. 2002), 75 Lawn Rd., London NW3 2XB, England.

Move over, America. One of the more surprising targets of jihad in recent times has been the regime of Libyan strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi.

Other Middle Eastern governments have faced threats from Islamists, of course, but Qaddafi’s case is different. Unlike neighbors such as Algeria, Egypt, and Sudan, "Libya has never experienced economic collapse, demographic crisis, desperate mass poverty, or acute socioeconomic and cultural gaps," observes Ronen, a research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. Qaddafi has remained an unrelenting foe of Israel, and he has emphatically avoided the ties to Western powers that have complicated the lives of some other regional leaders. His regime has "wrapped itself in the banner of Islam" ever since he seized power in 1969. Yet still the Islamists have attacked.

Because of the paucity of reliable information, it’s hard to say how serious the Islamist threat has been. In 1987, the government staged televised executions of nine alleged members of the Islamic Jihad organization (three of them soldiers), accusing them of treason and sabotage. Two years later, after riots and other disturbances in Tripoli, the regime made many arrests and "secretly executed" 21 Islamists. The Islamist threat, warned Qaddafi, was "more dangerous than cancer and AIDS, even more than war with the Israelis or the Americans."

Qaddafi was preoccupied with other matters during the early 1990s—the Persian Gulf War and its fallout, Anglo-American accusations of responsibility for the 1988 explosion of a Pan American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, and the resultant United Nations sanctions against Libya. Then, in 1995, Militant Islamic Group activists clashed with authorities in the northern city of Benghazi. The Islamic Martyrs Movement claimed responsibility for an attack on the Egyptian consulate in Benghazi in 1996. The two main Islamist groups each claimed to be behind a 1998 attempt on Qaddafi’s life.

Thanks to the regime’s "uncompromising repression" and the loyalty of the army, Ronen says, the Islamist threat receded by the end of the decade. Economic optimism after the end of UN sanctions in 1999 also helped Qaddafi’s cause. Now, after a remarkable 34 years in power, the Libyan dictator seems "firm in the saddle."