2. Tripolitanian Armed Groups
In 2012, as many as 30 armed groups could be described as militarily significant in Tripoli.26 By mid-2017, a so-called ‘quartet’ of only four main groups dominated the city: the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade (TRB); the Nawasi Brigade; the Special Deterrence Forces (SDF); and the Abu Slim Central Security Unit. A tacit coexistence agreement between these four actors and Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) – which arrived in Tripoli in March 2016 – has allowed the capital’s principal armed groups to consolidate their control.27
Community relations
The degree of social legitimacy that armed groups hold in the eyes of Tripoli’s residents – whose number has swelled to one-quarter of the country’s population – has fluctuated. The local population has credited the groups for a gradual improvement in security since the arrival of the GNA. Yet their presence is not universally popular: while some residents have praised the armed groups for participation in the ‘defence of the capital’, others have blamed their greed for helping to provoke the LAAF offensive that was launched in April 2019.28 There is a clear desire for a transition away from militias towards a more formal security apparatus, with a unified army and police. Residents appear pragmatic in what they expect from the armed groups currently in charge, resigning themselves to the fact that control over a particular part of the capital will be used by the group in question to generate funds. Such views indicate the extent to which illegal revenue-generating activity by armed groups has become normalized in Tripoli, and regarded as a necessary trade-off in return for the provision of security.
Interestingly, our interviews with Tripoli residents indicate that they blame the state rather than armed groups for the lack of functioning services. Several residents have explained that they believe corruption and illegitimate rent-seeking by armed groups to pale in comparison to the corruption of politicians. ‘What armed groups get in terms of letters of credit are crumbs in comparison with the … corruption witnessed in the Libyan Investment Authority or the Libyan Post, Telecommunications and Information Technology Company, the bigger problems are there,’ said one resident from Qasr Bin Ghashir.29 Nonetheless, corruption by armed groups in the capital has remained a significant source of grievance for the local population. When armed units from Tarhuna and Misrata sought to oust the incumbent groups from the capital in August and September 2018, they dubbed the Tripolitanian armed groups the ‘Daesh of the public finances’ – a potent attack line referencing Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Similarly, the LAAF’s pledge to end the corrupt practices of Tripoli’s armed groups gained it significant popular support ahead of its 2019 offensive on the capital.
Despite reservations, locals remain cognizant of the need to build positive relationships with armed groups, in case they need their services. As armed groups have taken on a more prominent role in protecting banks, for instance, young people in local communities have sought to build links with them to monitor the availability of basic financial services. One interviewee living in Fernaj explained: ‘I call a member of a local armed group – TRB – at least twice a week to know where I should go to line up for liquidity. The person doesn’t offer me an extra service, but at least I know not to waste my time waiting if there is no money at the bank.’30
In other cases, protection rackets effectively oblige locals to cultivate relations with armed groups. A resident from the Airport Road area asserted that ‘if you don’t have a good connection with an armed group and they hear that you obtained a significant amount in cash selling property, you are in danger of kidnapping for ransom’.31
Tripoli’s residents have few means of holding armed groups accountable, but a basic level of social legitimacy is still required for armed groups to operate effectively. The degree of connection between armed groups and the community is modest in Tripoli. In the tight-knit neighbourhood of Abu Slim, the Abu Slim Central Security Unit has a close relationship with the municipality and the community, from which its forces are drawn. In Suq al-Jumaa, close links between the SDF and religious members of the community strengthen its position. Yet overall, armed groups have focused almost exclusively on maintaining a stable security environment rather than performing other services.
Tripoli’s residents have few means of holding armed groups accountable, but a basic level of social legitimacy is still required for armed groups to operate effectively. The degree of connection between armed groups and the community is modest in Tripoli.
The involvement of armed groups in dispute resolution is minimal: armed groups provide little in the way of accountability or justice within communities. Previous participants in disputes have explained that their cases are either resolved ‘organically’ (i.e. through families) or settled using violence if the parties involved have connections with armed groups (or are members of such groups themselves). Armed groups are not immune to social pressures, however. Some residents of Tripoli have noted that when armed groups come under such pressures, their response is to seek to appease the local population. Following clashes between Tripoli’s armed groups and the Kani Brigade in August and September 2018, TRB leader Haitham al-Tajouri made a range of public gestures to curry favour with the community, including pressuring black-market traders to make cash available, forcing businesses to deposit cash in banks (to increase liquidity), and reopening hospital wards. Reflecting on Tajouri’s outreach, one resident of central Tripoli interviewed for this paper said: ‘Armed groups usually monopolize access to resources and liquidity while we are left alone to wait for the banks to give us handouts … but when the armed groups feel that they need our support, ironically they make sure we get enough access to liquidity so we don’t complain.’
In contrast to practice in other parts of the country, residents’ relations with armed groups in Tripoli are more likely to be managed on an individual basis than by the community. This is likely due to the fact that tribal influence is less pronounced within Tripoli’s armed groups. Consequently, access to or influence over armed groups is dependent on personal relationships. Social status, family, age and informal ties are significant factors in determining an individual’s access to particular services (especially banking services). As armed groups predominantly consist of young men, this makes it more likely that other young men in the host community will develop friendships with them (and therefore be disproportionately able to increase their access to services).
Revenue generation and resource mobilization
The dynamics of the conflict economy in western Libya have changed substantially since 2014, as a result of the political division in that region, the deterioration of the security situation and the consolidation in the number of armed groups in the capital. A contraction in armed group revenues has also been a key factor, as prior to 2014 the unrestrained expansion of state spending on salaries and operations had underwritten the budgets of a vast array of armed actors.
The arrival of the GNA in Tripoli in 201632 and its reliance for security on the ‘quartet’ of armed groups accelerated these trends. The GNA’s cooperation with these forces can be interpreted as a reaction to pressure to acquiesce to (or actively participate in) the development of alternative means of financing for armed groups in western Libya. It also doubtless reflected an intent to profiteer from the unaccountability typically characterizing interim periods of governance in Libya. Over time the conflict economy in Tripoli has developed in a manner not replicated elsewhere in the country, due in part to the fact that the military strategy of the four groups – the TRB, the Nawasi Brigade, the SDF and the Abu Slim Central Security Unit – has been to consolidate control over territory in Tripoli without attempting to expand beyond the capital. One consequence of this is that state legitimacy has been eroded while the de facto authority of these armed groups has grown.
Relying on their ability to dispense coercive force, and often with the complicity of elements of the political and business elite, Tripoli’s armed groups have developed lucrative revenue-generating mechanisms. These mechanisms are integral not only to the perpetuation of violence but also to the incentives that underpin the wider conflict economy. The volatility of this environment has been illustrated by intermittent bouts of violence – such as in Tripoli in August–September 2018 – as well as by the current LAAF offensive.
Access to state resources and assets
The hyper-centralization of Libya’s official system of governance – though not, of course, of de facto rule – means that control of the capital confers a significant degree of control over the distribution of state resources and assets. The various approaches used by armed groups in Tripoli to raise finances are overwhelmingly based on extracting resources from the state. Their methods differ in terms of the scale of funding targeted, but one way or another all rely on permutations of the following: salaries and direct payments; unofficial transfers via state, public or private institutions (e.g. through the shadow economy, taxation and the monetization of security services); and de facto expropriation of state assets (e.g. through control of critical infrastructure). It is rare for armed groups to focus exclusively on one source of income, as different modalities often overlap or complement each other, thus rendering diversification both lucrative and relatively easy to pursue.
Salaries are drawn from chapter 1 of the state budget, which is proposed by the GNA and negotiated with both the Tripoli-based CBL and the Interim Government (which negotiates disbursements to the east of the country). Chapter 2 of the budget covers operational costs – e.g. of equipment and arms – for the defence and interior ministries. It is also used to allocate funding for contractual work, security provision, catering and cleaning services. Contracts offer an alternative means of payment for armed groups. Contractors (essentially consultants) are not subject to the same salary grids as state employees, and their contract pay can therefore be much higher. All members of the Tripoli ‘quartet’ benefit, in part, from access to chapter 2 funding for operational services. While an average monthly salary for a member of an armed group in Tripoli is around LYD1,500 (based on contractual work), rates are believed to vary significantly from group to group, depending on the terms negotiated. The SDF, for example, is believed to have negotiated higher salaries than other groups. In contrast, many members of the TRB lack access to state salaries, instead leveraging the TRB’s influence over political and economic networks to generate income. The four groups usually contend that they lack official income streams to underwrite their operational costs, though in most cases the cleaning and catering companies servicing each group are covertly owned by its leadership.
Physical control of state institutions provides a key source of revenue. Tripoli’s armed groups have devoted much effort to securing control over areas of the capital that contain public sector offices, markets, banks and companies. Payments of protection money to the ‘quartet’ are largely perceived as an unavoidable operating cost: indeed, state-owned institutions and public companies specifically allocate a portion of their budgets to paying Tripoli’s groups to ensure security in their locality. In some cases, physical control of an office building has enabled an armed group to add its members to the payroll of the institution in question and/or secure lucrative contracts. In 2018 the Nawasi Brigade, which controls access to the headquarters of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), used violence to compel the LIA’s management to recruit and employ its fighters. When the LIA’s management resisted, the management team was forced to move out of Tripoli for several months. A plan to relocate its headquarters away from the Nawasi Brigade’s territory met with strong opposition from the armed group. The brigade also forced the Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LAFICO) to place a commander’s relative on its board.33
In the private sector, the most lucrative protection rackets have been those targeting banks. Little coercion has been required in these instances, because armed groups have often been the only viable option for providing security around banks and ensuring the effective distribution of cash. Armed groups have utilized the networks they have developed in this way not only to leverage their access to letters of credit (LCs) but also to derive revenues through credit card schemes. These schemes have involved exploiting the difference between the official exchange rate and the black-market rate. Among other mechanisms, armed groups have obtained pre-charged credit cards at the official rate. They have then hired ‘mules’ to carry the cards abroad and withdraw foreign currency, which has been funnelled back into Libya, at times through hawala networks.34 Tripoli’s armed groups have also sought to compensate for losses of direct state-derived income (i.e. from the Ministry of Defence or Ministry of Interior) by charging monthly fees to the banks. Importantly, the provision of protection services around banks has given armed groups privileged access to liquidity, of which there was a critical shortage in the banking sector between 2014 and late 2018.
Other protection services appear to have been set up on a consensus basis. Abdulghani al-Kikli (known as Ghneiwa), who exercises tight control over the Abu Slim Central Security Unit which he commands, has instituted a taxation mechanism to raise revenues that are subsequently reinvested into public works in the areas under his group’s control. It appears that the mechanism is informally implemented, yet sensitivities remain about how it operates and what exactly is entailed. In conversations with residents of the Abu Slim neighbourhood, Chatham House was told that any member of Ghneiwa’s entourage who divulges details of the taxation scheme’s operations is likely to be subject to physical violence.35 The Abu Slim Central Security Unit does not have the same access to resources as some of its rivals in Tripoli. This may explain why it still consistently relies on kidnapping to raise income. Some interviewees for this paper alleged that, unlike when people are kidnapped or imprisoned by the SDF for indeterminate periods, those kidnapped by the Abu Slim Central Security Unit are usually freed upon receipt of a ransom.36
Over the period 2014–18, armed groups increasingly relied on import/export fraud involving the use of LCs as a financing mechanism.37 Around $58 billion in overseas financial transfers appear to have been paid via LCs between 2012 and 2017. It is difficult to assess how much of this total was fraudulent, but the figure is likely to have exceeded $5 billion in 2012–18. In 2016, the Libyan Audit Bureau found that more than $570 million worth of fraudulent LCs had been issued in the first 11 months of the year; it is reasonable to assume that this figure falls far short of the total sums involved. Since then, the Libyan Audit Bureau has been denied access to the CBL’s database of LCs, preventing similar investigations, although the CBL contends that its decision to remove restrictions on companies applying for LCs in 2018 means that this is not an obstacle to transparency.
Initially, collaboration between armed groups and black-market dealers relied on the latter to provide expertise in navigating the trade finance system. Yet by 2018, the armed groups had gained expertise of their own in these processes.
As Tripoli’s armed groups have cemented their control over the capital, the level of coercion needed to obtain LCs has diminished. Initially, collaboration between armed groups and black-market dealers relied on the latter to provide expertise in navigating the trade finance system – e.g. advising on the use of front companies and financial channels – in return for the armed groups ensuring the ready approval of LC applications (something that the traders on their own were unable to guarantee). Yet by 2018, the armed groups had gained expertise of their own in these processes. They had developed front companies and financial channels, had cemented connections with their own members (or affiliates) and politicians, and had embedded fully operational units inside state institutions.38 The pre-existing quid pro quo with black-marketeers was thus obsolete. With armed groups now increasingly unaccountable and enjoying full control over the city, they were able to develop their own networks of profiteers. The scheme deployed to profit from LCs was determined by the influence and capacity of each armed group.39 Such dynamics also illustrate how businesses have remained willing to fund armed groups in return both for protection and for the use of the latter’s coercive capacities in furthering their commercial interests.
Infiltration of state institutions has made it easier for armed groups to access state resources without the need for violence. A notable example was the appointment of the son-in-law of the Nawasi Brigade’s leader as the head of the budget department at the Ministry of Finance. Such tactics indicate that armed groups are intent on taking over decision-making within state institutions to ensure access to resources, while avoiding coercion unless necessary.
At the same time, the ongoing conflict in the capital has reduced the ability of Tripoli’s armed groups to extract resources and rents from the state. The arrival of non-Tripolitanian armed groups in the capital after Haftar’s offensive in April 2019 – as well as the prominence of Fathi Bashagha, the minister of interior, as the key GNA figure responsible for resourcing the war effort (and also as the intermediary with Turkey for the coordination of military support) – has diminished the influence of some local groups. Infighting has caused the TRB, in particular, to decline in prominence. On the other hand, the Nawasi Brigade’s revolutionary ideology and wide mobilization in response to the LAAF offensive have allowed it to garner significant influence within and around Tripoli, to the detriment of rival groups from the capital.40 The Nawasi Brigade also benefits from the fact that several of its members are part of security ‘teams’, such as the Special Operations Forces, that report directly to the Ministry of Interior and are thus well supplied. The discrepancy between the Nawasi Brigade’s superior access to equipment supplies (through official state channels) and the access available to other groups is wide.
Intra-group variations in economic activity
The extent to which revenues are distributed within Tripoli’s armed groups varies significantly. For example, many TRB fighters and officials do not receive state salaries, instead having to raise revenue individually through diverse means. The nature of the group’s revenue-generating model means that, in the words of one TRB member interviewed for this paper, ‘the trickle-down in TRB is very limited’. The interviewee added:
We aren’t usually made aware of the way money goes in and out. However, what is visible to us is the discrepancy between commanders, who possess large amounts of cash along with fancy and expensive cars, and rank-and-file fighters who would only be receiving salaries or some form of compensation for being on active duty.
These comments indicate that the most lucrative revenue-generating activities are concentrated in the hands of a limited number of group members. It is worth noting that most of the TRB’s official members (i.e. those affiliated to the Ministry of Interior) are in fact demobilized most of the time, but that they still utilize their TRB connections as a means of generating income. Members of the TRB have adopted a number of approaches in this regard, reflecting the group’s status more as a network than as a clearly defined armed group. Some have sought to enter political life: a number had planned to run in the elections anticipated in 2018 – although the elections did not ultimately take place. Others have managed to get appointed to positions in various ministries and institutions, or have utilized their connections to secure positions on the boards of private businesses.
Our interviews with Tripoli residents indicate that the SDF, meanwhile, raises revenue by appropriating money, goods and materiel during raids and arrests. One interviewee asserted:
Not one single piece of information is disclosed regarding where the money that the SDF seizes from raids on drug hubs ends up. [The group] also resells most of the cars that it seizes, which creates avenues through which it can create income, supply itself and build up its own power.
Unlike with other armed groups in the capital, there is little evidence that SDF funds are concentrated in the hands of its top commanders. Revenue distribution appears to be organized through a formal payroll, with rank-and-file members receiving generous salaries. For revenues generated illicitly, it is likely that individual members and units operate with a degree of autonomy from the SDF’s leaders, although the revenues are likely to be shared among the subgroup involved.
26 Lacher, W. and Idrissi A. (2018), Capital of Militias: Tripoli’s Armed Groups Capture the State, The Small Arms Survey, Geneva: Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-SANA-BP-Tripoli-armed-groups.pdf (accessed 11 Dec. 2019).
27 Prior to 2016, Zintani and Misratan forces had controlled large areas of the capital, a source of contention for much of the local population.
28 Interview with male resident from Fernaj, via Skype, April 2019.
29 Interview with male resident from Qasr Bin Ghashir, conducted in Tunis, March 2019.
30 Interview with male resident from Fernaj, via Skype, April 2019.
31 Interview with male resident from Tripoli Airport Road, via Skype, April 2019.
32 The GNA’s members arrived in Tripoli in March 2016, via a military frigate used to ensure their safe passage. Lacher, W. (2018), Tripoli’s Militia Cartel: How Ill-Conceived Stabilization Blocks Political Progress, and Risks Renewed War, SWP Comment No. 20, https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2018C20_lac.pdf (accessed 11 Dec. 2019).
33 Majumdar Roy Choudhry, L., Abou-Khalil, N., Bouhou, K., Kartas, M., McFarland, D. and de Alburquerque Bacardit, L. (2018), Final report of the Panel of Experts on Libya established pursuant to resolution 1973 (2011) addressed to the President of the Security Council, United Nations Security Council, 5 September 2018, https://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=%20S/2018/812 (accessed 11 Dec. 2019).
34 For more detailed description of the visa card scheme, see Zway, S. A. (2017), Libya’s Shadow Economy, Mercy Corps, https://www.mercycorps.org/sites/default/files/Mercy%20Corps_Libya%20Shadow%20Economy.pdf (accessed 10 Feb. 2020).
35 Interview with residents from Abu Slim, via Skype, March 2019.
36 Ibid.
37 For a more detailed description of these practices, see Eaton, T. (2018), Libya’s War Economy: Predation, Profiteering and State Weakness, Research Paper, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/libyas-war-economy-predation-profiteering-and-state-weakness (accessed 11 Dec, 2019).
38 Interview with black-market trader in Tripoli, January 2019.
39 Some of the measures which the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has put in place to balance Libya’s budget and reduce graft have periodically removed access to LCs through the formal system. This has – perversely – empowered the black market and the position of profiteers. The imposition of a ‘fee’ on access to foreign exchange in September 2018 reduced the arbitrage opportunity, but it did not address the issue of misreporting imports and the offshoring of significant amounts of foreign currency. The fee has also led to concerns that significant revenues (estimated to be as much as LYD25 billion per year) are being levied, with few checks and balances over their expenditure.
40 The Nawasi Brigade has mobilized significantly in comparison with other Tripoli groups. It has stepped up recruitment, including an entire ‘brigade’ – affiliated with the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council – that de facto operates under its command. It has also established control over the General Intelligence Service and since April has arrested several people suspected of having links with Field Marshal Haftar. It has, however, suffered a loss of military influence as a result of casualties within its ranks in the fighting south of Tripoli. Several of the TRB’s leaders have left Tripoli since 4 April 2019. The group appears to be divided between a pro-revolutionary faction critical of the TRB’s engagement in the conflict economy in recent years and a faction close to the now-departed leader, Haitham al-Tajouri, who has become synonymous with the excesses of the 2014–18 period.