On 13 March, Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ) arrested a six member terrorist cell after conducting raids in the Casablanca area. A statement from the ministry of interior said that one of the terror suspects had been previously imprisoned over connections to IS in Libya.
On 8 March, French newspaper Liberation published an article based on French General Directorate of Internal Security documents and other sources suggesting that a senior figure of IS may have visited Libya for a short period of time in April 2017. The individual, Abu Luqman (Abu Ayub al-Ansari), was appointed the head of the Amniyat – IS intelligence services – in March 2017. It has been alleged that he travelled to Libya in April 2017 to help reorganize the group after their removal from Sirte in December 2016.
A weekly update of IS’s actions, the Western response, and developments pertaining to Libya’s other militias is available by subscribing here. To read about Western countries’ responses to IS in Libya this week, click here, and to read about the developments within the anti-IS Coalition of Libyan militias, click here. To read all four sections of this week’s Eye on IS in Libya report, click here.
