CAIRO — From east and west, the forces of Libya’s rival powers are each moving on the city of Sirte, vowing to free it from the hold of the Islamic State group. The danger is they could very well fight each other as well.
Rather than becoming a unifying cause as the United States and Europe have hoped, the fight against the jihadi group threatens greater fragmentation in Libya, which has been torn apart among rival militias, tribes, governments, and parliaments since the 2011 downfall of longtime autocrat Moammar Khadafy in a NATO-backed rebellion.
Each of the rival powers see capturing Sirte from the militants as a way to gain advantage over the other, seize control of vital oil facilities nearby, and gain legitimacy in the eyes of the international community.
One of the two rivals is Khalifa Hifter, the army chief based in the east whose forces have been battling Islamic militias the past two years in the eastern cities of Benghazi and Darna. Backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, he is considered a hero in the east. But he is widely despised in western Libya, where his opponents depict him as a would-be dictator along the lines of Khadafy.
The other power are the militias of Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, which have been the dominant force in the west since Khadafy’s fall and are bitterly opposed to Hifter.
‘‘It’s now clear Misrata and Hifter will compete over Sirte in order to establish who rules really in Libya,’’ Mattia Toaldo, a Libya specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in an e-mail interview.
The moves on Sirte threaten to further undermine Fayez Serraj, head of what is meant to be a national unity government envisaged under a UN-brokered deal reached after months of negotiations. So far, with only patchy support from some factions, Serraj has been ensconced in a naval base in Tripoli since his return to the country in March, unable to exercise much power beyond his office walls — much like his predecessors.
In a televised speech last week, Serraj condemned any unilateral assault on the Islamic State group stronghold, insisting any move to retake Sirte should be led by his administration. ‘‘We will not let the battle to liberate Sirte turn into a political bargaining,’’ he said.
But Serraj has no real forces under his control. So he appears to be aligning with Misrata to thwart Hifter, who rejects Serraj’s government because the UN-brokered deal requires Hifter’s removal as head of the military.
On Thursday, Serraj ordered formation of a command that would nominally lead any Sirte operation, most of them army officers from Misrata.
More than a year ago, Islamic State group militants captured Sirte, located at around the midpoint of Libya’s long Mediterranean coast. Though the jihadis — many of whom are from Tunisia — have had little success at expanding their territory, their presence has raised alarm that they could take advantage of Libya’s chaos to create a foothold.
The United States, Europe, and United Nations hope the creation of Serraj’s administration can unite Libya’s factions against Islamic State and provide a legitimate body that can receive foreign military assistance. His government is supposed to replace two rival governments that have fought for two years. One, based in Tripoli, was dominated by Islamist factions. The other is based in the eastern city of Tobruk, backed by Hifter, who commands a force made up of army units and eastern tribal fighters.
