Islamic State closes in on Libya’s oil crescent

MEE speaks to tribal elders from town of Harawa where the IS flag was raised on Friday after weeks of negotiations

June 8, 2015

Members of the Islamic State (IS) have their sights set on gaining full control of an area known as Libya’s oil crescent, according to residents in the Libyan town which has become IS’s latest conquest.

At a meeting with leaders from Harawa, IS militants said they were not interested in the town itself but needed it under their control as part of a planned takeover of the country’s central oil facilities, a senior resident of the town told Middle East Eye. Wary of the strong resistance Harawa had put up against its expansion in the region, IS negotiated an agreement with the tribal elders before entering the town and raising the flag above public buildings on Friday.

“In the negotiations IS said that before Ramadan they would enter the oil crescent,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Although locals had previously warned Libya’s rival governing institutions that the militant group was targeting the area for its oil, this was the first time IS had spoken of their plans, he said.

IS already has full control over the desert town of Nufaliya, just 50 kilometres from Libya’s largest oil export terminal of Es-Sidra, and controls much of Muammar Qaddafi’s former hometown of Sirte. Now having taken Harawa - strategically positioned between Sirte and Sidra in the centre of Libya’s coastal highway - it has secured a route to the oil crescent.


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