Although ISIS was not directly involved in Libya, its jihadi precursors were attempting evermore audacious attacks and changing the culture of the civil war. The battle between Haftar and the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council became even bloodier this week when the latter launched a series of suicide attacks in and around the Benina airport. The Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council staged four suicide bombings which, according to local reports, left more than 84 of Haftar’s men dead and 140 injured.
Some Libyans have claimed that for all talk of martyrdom, these attacks were more a sign of the group’s desperation than anything else as it had tried and failed for so many weeks to take the Benina airport from Haftar’s forces. This may well the case. However, the use of suicide bombings has raised the spectre of further such attacks being carried out not only in Benghazi but elsewhere in Libya and their normalization into the struggle for post-Qadhafi Libya even they were not normally tools.