News analysis: Chaos in Libya poses threat to Italy

Italy is looking over the Mediterranean Sea towards Libya, its oil-rich former colony, and it is afraid.

Rome's fears of an Islamic terror attack have escalated dramatically with Libya-based ISIS affiliates warning that the jihadist group was now "just south of Rome". Italy's alarm is being compounded by warnings of a mass-exodus of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea, and fears for the fate of its Libyan oil interests.

The Italian Government has called for UN-led international intervention to restore order in the north-African country, with Corriere Della Sera reporting secret service sources as saying that "Italy has never been as exposed to the jihadist threat" as it is now from terrorists in Libya.

The political pressure for stemming the chaos in Libya increased with reports, again sourced to intelligence services, saying that up to 500,000 migrants are now in Libya and that 200,000 are ready to flee to southern Europe, principally Italy, from camps on the Libyan coast.

On Monday interior minister Angelino Alfano repeated earlier calls by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi for a peace-keeping force in Libya. He told La Repubblica: "There is not a minute to lose. We have to intervene in Libya with a UN mission. The international community must understand that it is crucial for the future of the West."

Observers, such as international affairs expert Professor Raffaele Marchetti of Rome's LUISS University, said, however, there was little or no chance of UN intervention.

And in an interview in La Stampa, Nato's (Italian) commander of troops in Southern Europe, General Fabio Mini, explained why. He said that any armed intervention in Libya "would require 50,000 men - and that might not be enough". He predicted there would be 50 deaths among allied troops in the first week.

But experts agree that "chaos" is the right word to describe the situation in Libya, as a power struggle between Islamists and rival governments in Tripoli and Tobruk, divides a country already riven by vicious tribal turf wars.

By Monday afternoon after it dawned on everyone that there was little hope of Britain or France, let alone the Americans, committing troops to what has become a virtual non-state, Renzi had backtracked and called for caution.

And by Tuesday morning, following a meeting between Renzi and senior minsters, talk of armed action was replaced with vague references to a commitment to a diplomatic campaign at the United Nations level.

Nonetheless, Marchetti said the Islamist danger to Italy was real. "The situation is very worrying," he said. "All these sources taken together suggest that some sort of attack [in Italy] will be attempted." And with Italian passport holders returning from Middle East conflict zones, "there is the possibility of an attack on two fronts," he said.

He added that the Vatican, as "the centre of Christianity," would be a likely target of jihadists. The mass beheading of Coptic Christians on the Libyan shore of Mediterranean, facing Italy, was a clear threat to that effect," he said.

It follows news that jihadists, broadcasting from Mosul in Iraq, have denounced the Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni as "the minister for the Italian crusades." His security has been stepped up, Alfano said.

And there were reports at the weekend that several human traffickers threatened Italian Coast Guard officers with Kalashnikovs in order to stop them seizing their boat, while the Italians were in the process of rescuing nearly 2,000 migrants from 11 small vessels between Lampedusa and Libya on Sunday.

Mr Alfano said that the risk of ISIS terrorists seeking to enter Italy disguised as refugees "could not be discounted."

Of more concerns, according to Italian press reports, is the threat that ISIS will send hundreds of thousands of destitute refugees across the Mediterranean, to cause social and political upheaval.

The Libyan situation is already a hot political issue. The fears of mass migration - and the incident with the Kalashnikovs - has led Matteo Salvini, head of the right-wing Northern League, to tweet that migrants should not be allowed out of their boats.

Observers blame the mounting chaos in Libya, and the power vacuum that this has created, for allowing local affiliates of ISIS to spring up there - and menace Italy, the former colonial power.

Italy's concerns over Libya are compounded because it also has important economic interests to protect in the country, whose oil industry it carved up with the former dictator Gaddafi. He was killed October 2011 after being ousted from power.

Officials for Italian state energy firm Eni, which has invested billions of euros in Libya's oilfields, ports, and infrastructure, have said they are confident that fuel supplies are not under threat.

But in response to the tensions, Italy closed its embassy in Libya and brought back about 60 Italians early Monday.

Justifying his earlier calls for UN intervention in Libya, Alfano said that the global community had exposed Italy to danger by helping to oust Gaddafi and "had this on its conscience."

But Marchetti said: "The solution doesn't lie in direct intervention, but in building a coalition with moderate countries such as Egypt - and even the less extremist Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas - against ISIS. We have to be pragmatic." Endit