104 / 145
THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
104
(EUBAM) in May 2013, which due to the dete-
rioration of the political situation in the country
has been reduced to a small corps currently op-
erating from Tunis. Different options are now
being studied, including military intervention,
but all appear unfeasible due to the lack of a
single, valid interlocutor, a perplexing situation
that cannot be resolved whilst the country has
two separate and antagonistic governments
and parliaments. In spite of a UN Security Coun-
cil-endorsed agreement reached in Srijat, Mo-
rocco in December by which a presidential
council will name the members of a unity gov-
ernment, further progress is currently blocked
by the rejection of the deal on the part of the
parliament situated in Tobruk. The European
Council has repeatedly discussed the situation
in this country situated a mere 350 kilometres
from Malta, which has proved to be a never-
ending source of problems for the EU. Libya is
currently the base for much of the mass illegal
migration towards Europe. The fact that the
country’s current oil exports to Europe have
slumped to a fifth of their former level is an-
other cause of preoccupation. The Council is
looking to promote the formation of a govern-
ment of national unity with the will and desire
to support the fight against jihadism in the
country.
Support for the armed and security forces of
countries in which jihadist groups operate needs
to be part of a broader strategy that includes
political and economic measures that contribute
to their stability, prosperity and democratisa-
tion, assistance in developing anti-radicalisation
educational and cultural programmes and im-
proving the effectiveness of their means of pre-
venting and control extremism, and a greater
level of intelligence sharing. Policies that sup-
port dictators such as Abdelfatah Al-Sisi in Egypt
should be reviewed given that such regimes sow
the seeds of deeper radicalisation. Initiatives
such as the Union for the Mediterranean and
the European Neighbourhood Policy should also
be updated in the light for their ineffectiveness
in terms of promoting stability, progress and se-
curity in Northern African countries. EU strate-
gies for the Sahel (September 2011) and the
Horn of Africa (November 2011) should likewise
be revised to focus more on the fight against
jihadism, which is now the principal threat to
both these regions and Europe.
IS in the Middle East: the war in Syria
The most important jihadist group at this mo-
ment is IS, whose centre of gravity covers a
large portion of the Middle East that includes
about a third of Syria’s territory with Raqqa as it
capital and a quarter of Iraq that includes Mosul
and Fallujah, where it has imposed a brutal dic-
tatorship. It is estimated that IS could have as
many as 35,000 fighters under its command,
4,000 of which could have come from Europe.
Meanwhile, the Al-Nusra Front (ANF), a branch
of AQ active in Syria that has a force of any-
where between 5,000 and 10,000 in that coun-
try, controls part of the provinces of Hasaka and
Idlib. Although armed confrontations between
the ANF and IS led to a rupture between IS and
AQ in 2014, the groups have nevertheless oc-
casionally collaborated.
IS, which emerged in Iraq in the wake of the
US invasion, entered Syria in 2013 amidst the
chaos of a civil war that has raged since March
2011 between the regime of Bachar al-Assad
and the various armed opposition groups that
launched a revolt in the wake of the Arab
Spring. To date, the war has claimed between
300,000 and 400,000 lives and caused the dis-
placement of 11 million people, 5 million of