Religious Antagonism and Islamic Uprising from Tunisia to Saudi-Arabia

Abstract

In Libya, the United States and NATO managed to produce chaos, fitna, sedition and anarchy. In the midst of the growing instability and continuing conflicts, militias and tribes filled the political vacuum left after the fall of Gaddafi. In March 2012, the tribal chiefs and militia commanders proclaimed the semi-autonomy of Cyrenaica, the oil-rich province where the rebellion had started, and the “federalists” attacked the voting stations for the parliamentary elections of July 2012. The “federalists” probably wanted to restore the three province system of the time of the Romans: Tripolitania in the West, Fezzan in the southwest, and Cyrenaica/Barga in the east. The president of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, accused them of receiving foreign funding from “Arab sister nations” that supported the sedition in the east, dividing the country. These Arab nations, shrouded in veils, were Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the same countries that had provided special forces and mercenaries to NATO in the fight against Gaddafi.

The parliamentary elections had been won by the National Forces Alliance, which united 60 small parties and two dozens of civil society organizations under the leadership of Mahmoud Jibril, a political scientist with a degree from the University of Pittsburgh (United States) and president of the National Transitional Council (CNT). But the fact that the two main Islamic parties—Justice and Construction (Muslim Brotherhood) and Al-Watan (Salafist), headed by the former jihadist and warlord Abdel Hakim Belhadj, commander of the Tripoli Military Council—didn’t have a majority in the Assembly tasked with drafting the Constitution, meant little. The Salafist leader Ismail Salabi became commander of the Benghazi Brigade and the command of the Tripoli Brigade remained in the hands of the jihadist Abdel Hakim Belhadj.