Other Jihadi Actors – 3 June 2014

Jun 3, 2014 | Other Jihadi Actors

Ansar al Sharia condemned Haftar’s campaign against them and vowed to fight against what they called a “crusade on Islam”. Other political Islamist groups and figures like the Muslim Brotherhood and the country’s grand Mufti Sheikh Sadiq al Gheriani have condemned the actions of both Ansar al Sharia and Haftar accusing both camps of acting outside the law and endangering Libya’s democratic transition. This, however, appears to be Gheriani’s attempt to back-pedal on his earlier statement lambasting Haftar, which claimed that what Haftar is doing in Benghazi is much more like terrorism than what Ansar al-Sharia have ever done. This dynamic shows that starting in June 2014 dynamics favouring an alliance of the mainstream Islamist politicians with jihadi elements were beginning to be cemented.