US President Barack Obama has asked key advisers to draw up options for ratcheting up the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group, including opening a new front in Libya.
Eighteen months after a US-led coalition began airstrikes against the group in Iraq and Syria, multiple administration sources on Friday said that the White House wants to speed up and broaden the effort.
Efforts would deepen to retake Raqa in Syria, Mosul in Iraq and to check the group’s growth in Afghanistan, but there is an increasing focus on Libya.
Potential options are said to range from intensified airstrikes to participation in a UN-backed ground force that would help take on Libya’s estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters.
The US Department of Defense “stands ready to perform the full spectrum of military operations as required,” department spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Baldanza told reporters. “We also continue to work with the international community to mitigate conflict in Libya, promote stability, and strengthen governance.”
Officials said that Obama has not yet been presented with concrete military plans, although the security situation is acute.
“Action in Libya is needed before Libya becomes a sanctuary for ISIL, before they become extremely hard to dislodge,” a US defense official said, using another acronym for the IS. “We don’t want a situation like in Iraq or Syria.”
Since rebels and Western airpower toppled former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s regime in 2011, the country has effectively lacked a government.
In the chaos a disparate group of foreign fighters, homegrown militiamen, tribes and remnants of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group have coalesced around the Islamic State banner and gained a foothold.
Extremists have recently taken control of Qaddafi’s home town of Sirte, a strategic port near oilfields that could provide a lucrative source of income.
Until now, US involvement in Libya has been limited to isolated airstrikes and the deployment of US special forces, who are building ties with local armed groups and providing intelligence.
In November last year, a US F-16 jet struck the eastern town of Derna, killing Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi, the senior IS leader in Libya.
On Thursday, Obama convened the US National Security Council to discuss present operations and possible next steps.
“The president directed his national security team to continue efforts to strengthen governance and support ongoing counterterrorism efforts in Libya and other countries where ISIL has sought to establish a presence,” according to a White House account of the meeting.
Republicans, with one eye on November’s US presidential election, have pilloried Obama and Democratic presidential hopeful and former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton for not doing more to prevent the Islamic State group’s rise.
“Congress has been calling for a real strategy from the president to defeat ISIS,” a House Speaker Paul Ryan said, using yet another acronym for the IS. “We’ll see whether this is just more talk or if it will be backed up with the will and the resources necessary for victory.”
Further steps — including ground operations — are likely to depend on Libyans’ ability to form a Government of National Accord, which the UN is still trying to bring together.
“There needs to be a political solution to get a military solution,” said another US defense official, echoing comments from diplomats. “We hope that there is the beginning of a political solution so that there is a legitimate government that can invite us to go after ISIL.”
Washington is also looking to European nations — facing a more acute threat from the collapse of a country a short distance across the Mediterranean — to play a leading role, including former Libyan colonial power Italy.
Obama is to host Italian President Sergio Mattarella, at the White House on Feb. 8.
France and Britain are also slated as possible contributors.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to meet his European counterparts in Rome on Tuesday.
“The idea is to have a coalition of nations,” a US defense official said.
The deteriorating situation on the ground might leave the administration few options but to launch a ground campaign, even if the long-term path is unclear, some security experts said.
“The unfortunate reality is that this is a bad option, but it’s the only one,” said Patrick Skinner, a former CIA case officer now working for the Soufan Group, a security consultancy.
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