Italy Fears ISIS Invasion From Libya

[Blue_Tires]

ROME — Last weekend in Italy, as the threat of ISIS in Libya hit home with a new video addressed to “the nation signed with the blood of the cross” and the warning, “we are south of Rome,” Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi shuttered up the Italian embassy in Tripoli and raised his fist with the threat of impending military action. Never mind that Italy has only 5,000 troops available that are even close to deployable, according to the defense ministry. Or that the military budget was cut by 40 percent two years ago, which has kept the acquisition of 90 F-35 fighter jets hanging in the balance and left the country combat-challenged to lead any mission—especially one against an enemy like the Islamic State.

In fact, Renzi didn’t specify exactly who would wield that military might, and, two days later, when no one volunteered to lead the charge, he backtracked. “It’s not the time for a military intervention,” Renzi told an Italian television station Monday night and said the United Nations had to lead the way. “Our proposal is to wait for the UN Security Council. The strength of the UN is decidedly superior to that of the radical militias.”

Whether the time is right or not, there is no question that there is a palpable tension in Italy over the ISIS threat—Libya is just 109 miles away from the island of Lampedusa and 300 miles from Sicily—made worse by a 64 percent increase in illegal migrant arrivals by sea since last year. In all of 2014, more than 170,000 people arrived from Libya and Turkey, the highest number ever recorded. Last weekend, as the embassy staff made their way to Italy on a mercantile ship, 2,164 migrants left the same Libyan shores en route to Sicily. The week before, more than 300 people were lost in the same seas as their rickety fishing boats capsized before rescuers could save them.

Anti-immigration politicians have argued for months that it would take little for jihadi fighters to infiltrate a migrant boat and effectively end up taxied into Italy by rescue ships and the Italian navy. In a biting editorial in Il Giornale newspaper, owned by the Silvio Berlusconi family, Sergio Rame hypothesized that the recent influx was an attempt by terrorists to effectively “smoke out” the Italian navy into rescuing the migrants, in an attempt to lure the boats close to Libyan shores in order to launch an attack. The Italian government, which supports the rescue of migrants fleeing war, dismissed the theory.

Meanwhile, the Italian government said they are prepared to deploy 500 special anti-terrorism police to protect sensitive tourist sites in Rome.

What is disturbing is that something is drastically changing in the migrant shuttling business, which has lead defense analysts to warn that Italy has never been so exposed to an attack. For the first time since Italy started officially rescuing migrants in 2013—first through its now defunct Mare Nostrum program and later through the European Union’s border control Frontex Triton mission—the smugglers, who usually melt in with the migrants, are armed and dangerous. Last weekend, smugglers wielding Kalashnikovs fought the Italian coast guard rescue boat to wrestle back a smuggler ship after the human cargo had been rescued and the boat seized. They hauled the boat back towards Libya, presumably to fill it up again. The Office of Migration in Rome says there could be as many as half a million people in camps waiting to come to Italy and the unrest will push them out faster.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/17/italy-fears-isis-invasion-from-libya.html?via=desktop&source=twitter

[Fred Sanders]

1. We are all going to DIE! I is very scared of the ISIS. Please save me! Please make the TV stop!

[msanthrope]

2. Given the current migrant crisis the Italian islands are struggling with.....Italy is right to be

concerned. Thousands have already died, fleeing unrest.

That's not to say that I think ISIS will invade---but rather, that Italy is right to be on a heightened security warning....

I mean.....look at the map, dude. If nothing else, Italy must be prepared for more waves of refugees. And, possibly, some terrorists.

If you've ever watched video of refugees being pulled from the islands......it's a humanitarian crisis.

[Fred Sanders]

4. Wow. I just did! Thanks! Lot of water in between....OMG, an ISIS Navy!! I is even more scared now!!

[msanthrope]

6. Have you no pity or concept of the fact of the thousands who have died fleeing North Africa over the

last few years?

At the very least, Italy must be prepared for more waves of migrants.

This doesn't mean panic......just preparedness.

And some goddamn compassion for the thousands who have drowned within sight of fucking land.

[Fred Sanders]

7. Nice strawman you knocked down there. We are all still going to DIE! Still oh so scared!

"Italy", she is scared too! So she says.

[msanthrope]

8. Strawman? The OP talks about the migrant crisis. At the least--there will be many, many more

refugees.....and with refugees, Italy is right to be concerned about others who come over.

Thousands have landed. Thousands have died. Italians are not afraid....they lived through worse horrors--my own grandfather proudly led his American troops back through Sicily screaming "Cazzo fascista!" Just as my relatives there, now, are proud to give aid to refugees--Italians are not afraid. But they know when to be prepared.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

11. Oh the evil Westerners! They're going to kill us all! All they do is stir-up baseless hatreds!

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

13. Oh, good grief.

A few hundred radical Islamists could do a lot of damage in Italy. I'm sure they'd just love to bomb some of the beautiful churches, and maybe kill a few people along the way.

[Fred Sanders]

15. Yes, like I said, I is ever so scared for Italy. Then what after the INVASION of Italy!? Scary.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

16. "I is.."

tsk tsk

Don't think that's a typo. You making fun of anyone or imitating anyone, in particular? Or maybe an ethnic group?

[JustAnotherGen]

21. Except

The region they are most likely to go into has a heavy immigrant population, is heavily armed (they register their guns with the police), and until the late 1990's folks were still settling petty disputes with these small axes they are not supposed to be carrying around anymore.


Let's wait and see Fred's response IF they try to pull some shit down there. Because they will shoot and chop back. I don't want to hear any bullshit about "not fair" and screams for due process when they fight back from the defenders of radical Islam.

Now I don't believe that ISIS is anything more than a bunch of dirty cheap two bit dimestore hoods. I dont. But they will run up aginst mountain street fighters who have all served in the military. My husband was a mandatory serve and he's only 45. And they know their land and their towns. And there are a lot of them there. A lot.

Back in early 2010 there were attacks on migrant worker camps. Camorra (mid country organized crime) started shit. Ndrengheta retaliated as they need those people to ake money. Ndrengheta is much more vicious than Cosa and they run the Southern part of the country.

Add in a part of the country that wants out of the EU - and all hell will break loose if ISIS pulls that stunt.

And I do think it's possible. Keep in mind the EU took over the "rescue missions" from the Italians who were getting people safely on land and processed - now the EU is utterly imcompetent and worthless in that regard - and it's possible.

[ND-Dem]

25. so could a few hundred grannies with knitting needles. or a few hundred mad dogs. or

a few hundred ninja midgets with nunchuks.

[JustAnotherGen]

27. Thus far it's been just a couple of people with guns

I think hundreds is an exaggeration - but even here in the US we know what a couple of jerks with guns can do.

One guy killed like 26 people in a grade school just a few years ago. Nothing to do with religion or politics - he just shot it up.

I'm laughing at the midgets with nunchucks visual! I had a run with some little people at a little people convention when I was in college and those folks are bad ass and don't take shit. If they had ninja weapons I wouldn't be alive today!

[ND-Dem]

28. little people are tough. there were some very funny stories about the little people who

worked on the wizard of oz r/t that. they were almost gangster types.

[JonLP24]

3. The Rome thing is from their Doomsday theory

Its outdated from the Roman empire

In a prophecy attributed to Muhammad, the Prophet predicts the Day of Judgment will come after the Muslims defeat Rome at al-`Amaq or Dabiq, two places close to the Syrian border with Turkey. Another prophecy holds that Rome’s allies will number 80. The Muslims will then proceed to conquer Constantinople (Istanbul).

<snip>

The fact that Turkish Muslims, not infidel Romans, control Constantinople today and are working with the infidel Romans against the Islamic State makes the Dabiq prophecy a poor fit for contemporary events. The inevitable defeat of the Islamic State at Dabiq, should it ever confront “Rome,” would also argue against the prophecy’s applicability. But in the apocalyptic imagination, inconvenient facts rarely impede the glorious march to the end of the world.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2014/10/03-isis-apocalyptic-showdown-syria-mccants

[TheKentuckian]

5. Well, it shouldn't have been destabilized. Go cry to the French and the British.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. All of North Africa was detabilized for centuries

The Ottoman Empire was in league with Islamic caliphates who led a campaign of murder, kidnapping,and hijacking on the high seas from North African ports. They were called the Barbary Pirates and they murdered and enslaved their way to the destruction of shipping in the Mediterranean. Jefferson Davis and the young United States had a brief encounter with them at Tripoli. They attacked as far as Iceland and Ireland. (the sack of Baltimore, Ireland in 1631). Only in the early 1800s when Italy, Spain, and France finally went in to North Africa did the chaos and murder end and stability return.

[JonLP24]

12. Crediting colonization for stability?

That effects of post-colonization are all over the place

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

14. The immediate effects of colonization were positive

in ending the murder and hijacking and bringing modernization and commercial stability to shipping. Not all the effects of colonization in North Africa were positive but it would be wrong to see it from just one perspective. Post-colonization is something else and something I clearly didn't bring up.

[JonLP24]

17. For who?

European trade routes.

There was certainly a lot of murder that took place for those European trade routes.

On edit -- Re-reading, that seems like what you said but in the context of stability, it wasn't helpful.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

18. For jobs, education, health, food

Algeria became a rich area. Europeans established large farms in North Africa and hospitals, and schools as well as modern roads, cities, and bridges. While the people (I won't say native people because Algerians for example are ex colonials themselves and treat the native Berbers and Khabylles like second class citizens even now) didn't enjoy the full benefit of their work, they certainly had better lives than before. And many Europeans intermarried with them. I knew quite a few.

[JonLP24]

19. The French going in and favoring one side over the other

started a lot of the whole second class citizens, genocide, etc.

On the pretext of a slight to their consul, the French invaded and captured Algiers in 1830.[48][49] The conquest of Algeria by the French took some time and resulted in considerable bloodshed. A combination of violence and disease epidemics caused the indigenous Algerian population to decline by nearly one-third from 1830 to 1872.[50][unreliable source?] The population of Algeria, which stood at about 1.5 million in 1830, reached nearly 11 million in 1960.[51] French policy was predicated on "civilizing" the country.[52] Algeria's social fabric suffered during the occupation: literacy plummeted.[53] During this period, a small but influential French-speaking indigenous elite was formed, made up of Berbers mostly from Kabyles. As a consequence, French government favored the Kabyles.[54] About 80% of Indigenous Schools were constructed for Kabyles.

From 1848 until independence, France administered the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria as an integral part and département of the nation. One of France's longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants, who became known as colons and later, as Pied-Noirs. Between 1825 and 1847, 50,000 French people emigrated to Algeria.[55][page needed] These settlers benefited from the French government's confiscation of communal land from tribal peoples, and the application of modern agricultural techniques that increased the amount of arable land.[56]

Gradually, dissatisfaction among the Muslim population, which lacked political and economic status in the colonial system, gave rise to demands for greater political autonomy, and eventually independence, from France. Tensions between the two population groups came to a head in 1954, when the first violent events of what was later called the Algerian War began. Historians have estimated that between 30,000 and 150,000 Harkis and their dependents were killed by the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) or by lynch mobs in Algeria.[57] The FLN used terrorist attacks in Algeria and France as part of its war, and the French conducted severe reprisals. The war led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Algerians and hundreds of thousands of injuries. The war concluded in 1962, when Algeria gained complete independence following the March 1962 Evian agreements and the July 1962 self-determination referendum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algeria

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

20. Your own article lists the figures on the dramatic decline of the population as an unreliable source

but plague has been a constant threat to the population in that part of the world for centuries. The Harkis or loyalists were massacred by the communist FLN. Quite a few were given safe passage to the south of France and plots of land as a reward for their service after the war. This article doesn't seem to know much about the Kabylles, calling them "elite". They have lived lives of poverty in Kabylia for centuries and the Arab speakers shun them and treat them poorly. Their non-Arabic language is not recognized. There's very little on them in English but French sources are multiple. Many Kabyles who have emigrated to France have organized movements on behalf of their people still being suppressed in Algeria.

http://www.paperblog.fr/6156973/algerie-l-oppression-de-la-kabylie-continue/

(from a free Kabyle website)

"The dictatorial power of Algiers continues to treat Kabyles like second class Algerians, considering their desire for autonomy and independence of this people. A significant example of this particular treatment is found in the extraction of sand from Acif N'Sebaou in Kabyle territory, supposedly forbidden for Kabyles but allowed for Algerians. The pillaging of natural richess of Kabylia by the central power of Algiers need no longer be demonstrated."

The Kabyles have long been treated like second class members of society because they don't speak Arabic and they have different ways.

[JonLP24]

22. That is exactly what I mean

The elevating the Tutsi over the majority Hutu & labeling different races is the root causes that led to the genocide of Tutsi.

On edit - I'm not sure it was the French in Rwanda but just the whole mentality of their actions when they went into these countries.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

24. That is true

but the Kabyles were among the most ferocious fighters against the French. From their remote villages they waged partisan warfare and few Europeans wanted to venture there. The rift between Kabylls and Arab speakers was not caused by the Algerian war. When the Arabs invaded North Africa in around 700, the Kabyles were animists and integrated many non-Islamic beliefs and practices into their form of Islam.. They were slow to accept Islam and even today are not considered pure Moslems by the Arabs around them. They have always been fiercely independent.

[JonLP24]

26. I'm not very familiar with Algeria

I just know identity politics driven conflicts are going on today and colonization had an effect of that. Syria is a good example, there is a reason why IS uses Sykes-Picot heavily in their propaganda even though Wahabbis were the most unhappy & most violent within the Ottoman Empire.

[seveneyes]

10. Mad love is coming

Right on the border of enemy territory
This is how far you've come, this is how far you've gone

[JustAnotherGen]

23. Thank you blue for this article

It's not hair on fire - its people being realistic and being aware.