Libya border police struggling to contain ‘spread of anarchy’ amid Islamist infiltration

Libya’s “overstretched” border police is struggling to secure its desert border with Egypt and amid heightened fears of an infiltration by Islamist militants, the two North African neighbours have agreed to step up efforts to battle insurgents, Reuters reports.

Two weeks ago, 15 members of the militant group ISIS managed to cross in from Egypt to set up a cell from Libya, while up to 500 people a day, or between 100 and 150 vehicles cross at the border post.

However, a measly police force of 30 police officers is struggling to managing the 1,115 km (700 mile) desert border, where Egypt and its Western allies hope to prevent Islamist militants infiltrating to join fellow fighters on Egyptian territory, or sneaking back to find safe haven.

“Hampered by a lack of manpower and equipment, worsened by a breakdown in state authority following the 2011 downfall of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya’s border guards are struggling to contain the spreading of anarchy,” the report said.

Earlier this week, it emerged that a Libyan jihadist group – the Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam, or Islamic Youth Shura Council (MSSI) – had announced the city of Derna as part of the ‘caliphate’ that the Islamic State is seeking to extend over the Muslim world.

Coupled with the presence of jihadists in eastern Libya, the advances made by fundamentalists allied to the Islamic State in the North African country has been described as “alarming” by foreign affairs minister George Vella.

Vella said that Derna has been home to the most extremist Islamist factions in Libya since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. In 2007, United States troops in Iraq found that 52 of the 112 Libyan foreign jihadists fighters came from Derna.

Photos and videos on Twitter have delivered images of masked members of the MSSI taking to the streets of Derna, wearing military uniforms, driving pickup trucks, and brandishing rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns, and anti aircraft cannons.

On 3 October - according to information clearing house Jihadology.net - MSSI said the territory controlled in Derna was now part of the caliphate, refashioning the city as Wilayat Derna, the province of Derna within the Islamic State. The latter claim may have been issued because 15 ISIS members were allegedly dispatched from Syria to Derna recently.

To celebrate the announcement, MSSI organized a forum at al-Sahaba Mosque called "khilafah ala manhaj al-nabawiyah (the Caliphate upon the methodology of the Prophet)", a slogan used by ISIS in the past year. Hundreds took part in the event.