How online arms sales fuel the Libyan conflict

A Small Arms Survey report highlights the growing role of the Internet in the circulation of small arms since the fall of Gaddafi.

The circulation of small arms in Libya, a powerful factor in the instability in which the country has been plunged since 2011, has grown in recent years through the development of a genuine Internet market. This is the main conclusion of a report published on Wednesday 3 May in Geneva by Small

Arms Survey, an organization whose mandate is to study the role of small arms in conflict zones.

Close ties with militias
Exploring a little-known aspect of the Libyan crisis, the authors of the Web Trafficking report. Between September 2014 and November 2015, six discussion groups on social networks (closed or secret, with the exception of one) where the purchase and sale of Weapons. They identified illicit small arms and light weapons from 26 producing countries. If "most" transactions, the authors of the report, have "apparently been operated" for sports, leisure, self-defense or commercial profit, "participants ... have close ties to Libyan militias ". But this type of connection in an expanding market becomes highly problematic at a time when attempts at a political solution to the Libyan crisis are hampering a militarized landscape that is difficult to control.

tags: LeMonde