On 21 June, The German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) published a research paper by Wolfram Lacher titled ‘Where Have All the Jihadists Gone? The Rise and Mysterious Fall of Militant Islamist Movements in Libya’. The paper looks at the ‘puzzling’ and rapid decline of Islamist movements in post-Ghaddafi Libya, arguing that ‘tactical choices, such as the search for protection or allies, fuelled both the rise and fall of militant Islamists’. Lacher analyses the ‘dramatic decline’ of militant Islamist movements in order to understand the motivations behind their rise. Based on interviews with members and allies of militant Islamist groups, as well as with actors who observed these groups in their immediate social environment, Lacher’s study explores ‘the question of how to explain the abrupt change of fortune of militant Islamists in Libya – and what it teaches us about the driving forces behind Islamist mobilisation’.
Read the full paper here.