On 26 June, the US Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Paul Selva, reportedly told a group of reporters in Washington that the US administration is seeing a “small resurgence of those [IS] camps in the central region” following the Libyan National Army’s (LNA) assault on the capital in April. Selva also alleged that certain Tuareg groups were “helping out the IS militants and moving people back and forth across the border to the south.” Selva suggested the LNA and the Government of National Accord (GNA) had been “keeping a lid on IS for their own individual interest for a fair period of time”, yet he was concerned that IS might become a “third party in the fight in Libya.”
On 23 June, unconfirmed reports suggested a prominent Al-Qaeda member, Adel Al-Hanashi, has been fighting amongst GNA-aligned forces against the LNA in the Tripoli suburb of Aziziyah. Al-Hanashi is said to have lived in Yemen in the 90’s and then under the name of “Rabee al-Janzouri” travelled to Afghanistan where he joined Al-Qaeda.
To read all four sections of this week’s Eye on ISIS in Libya report, click here.
