Libya’s latest battle: to gain control of country’s arms dumps

More than two months after the fall of Tripoli, Libya’s new leaders are still struggling to secure massive weapons depots, stop the smuggling of munitions out of the country and disarm thousands of fighters who brought down Muammar al-Gaddafi’s regime.

Last month, Human Rights Watch researchers found an unguarded weapons site with thousands of crates of rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft rounds in the Libyan desert.

Libyan authorities also discovered two military compounds housing chemical weapons that an official said were ready to be assembled and used, as well as another site containing 7,000 drums of raw uranium. Chemical weapons inspectors arrived in Libya this week to start securing the sites.

The international community has offered to help, but also expects Libyans to step up. However, the interim leadership – in limbo until the formation of a new government mid-month – may not be up to the task. Libya’s temporary leader, responding to increasingly urgent international appeals, said he can not do much because he lacks the funds.

Failure to secure weapons has fuelled fears that the material could fall into the wrong hands.

Compounding the problem is the myriad brigades of revolutionary fighters that so far have refused to disarm, and there has been a rash of personal score-settling by armed men from rival groups.

Weapons smuggling across the border into neighbouring Egypt “happens all day and night,” controlled by powerful clans in the area, said Adel al-Motirdi, commander of the patrol units on the two countries’ border. Israeli officials have said some of those weapons have reached the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, which shares a border with Egypt.

Libya is now seeking help from friendly countries, including Qatar, one of the earliest supporters of the anti-Gaddafi uprising, to secure the borders.

Boaz Ganor, an Israeli counter-terrorism expert, said it is impossible to estimate how many anti-aircraft missiles have disappeared in Libya. “It’s enough that dozens would fall into the hands of terror organisations, and we find ourselves in a new era of terror against aircraft,” he said.

But other security experts noted that shoulder-held anti-aircraft missiles, like all munitions, decay over time and that Libya is not the only black market source of such weapons.

For Libyans, disarming rebel fighters seems to be the most pressing problem, following some personal revenge attacks by rival groups.

In one of the most serious incidents yet, fighters battled each other at Tripoli’s central hospital over two days this week. At one point, a gunman trying to finish off a wounded rival sneaked into an operating theatre and managed to fire one shot before being disarmed, the hospital security chief said. The feud left one dead and five wounded.

Despite repeated announcements, the government has not begun to collect weapons. In Tripoli, pick-up trucks with anti-aircraft guns and other heavy weapons mounted in the back are a common sight.

Rival military commanders jockeying for positions seem reluctant to be the first to disarm. Mukhtar al-Akhdar, a commander who captured Tripoli’s airport during the war and now controls it, said it is not yet time to hand over weapons because the city remains insecure.