SUMMARY

The Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council (sometimes referred to as the ASC) was an extremist Islamist and jihadist group created in Libya in 2015. The goal of the group was to establish rule in concurrence with Islamic law (Sharia) in Ajdabiya, a town in eastern Libya. The Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council was one of several similar umbrella organizations set up in eastern Libya in 2014 and 2015; aside from Ajdabiya, Shura Councils was for example also set up in Benghazi and Derna. The purpose of the Shura Councils was to coordinate the efforts of various extremist Islamist and jihadist groups to establish an Islamic Emirate ruled by Sharia law; it should be noted that the exact geographical boundaries of this proposed emirate was not specified.

The Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council was created in March 2015 by various Islamist groups active in Eastern Libya, including elements from Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) and Libya Shield. The role model used when creating the groups was the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, and umbrella group that had been created in June 2014. In general, the various Shura Council groups functioned not as unitary actors, but as umbrellas, which meant that their constituent groups continued to maintain whatever individual activities it had prior to the creation of a particular council. As was the case in Benghazi, the dominant faction in Ajdabiya was ASL, and elements from that group were driving in the creation of also the Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council. “Libya Shield” was the collection name of a number of independent or semi-independent militias that had been created in 2012 with mandate from the Government of Libya. A majority of the shield forces were comprised of Islamist groups originally set up during the 2011 uprising to fight against Muammar Qaddafi. In the aftermath of the uprising, these militias were transformed into 12 divisions (or “Shields”) by the Government of Libya to serve as auxiliary security forces, as Libya’s national armed forces and police were in disarray. In 2014, several Shield forces defected from the government and joined radical Islamist movements, such as the Shura Councils in Ajdabiya and Benghazi. The Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council was led by Muhammad al-Zawi.

The Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council cooperated closely with the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council and the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council. These various Shura Councils, while acting separately at a tactical level, maintained a high level of coordination in working towards largely concurrent goals. This implied that there were close ties between the Ajdabiya and Benghazi Shura Councils; for example, it was likely that fighters were transferred between the groups. Like the other Shura Councils, the Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council was considered an al-Qaida affiliate. While there was no formal pledge of allegiance, the Ajdabiya group was generally supportive of al-Qaida’s “global” jihadi agenda; there was also indications that AQIM fighters fought alongside the Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council. Like its counterpart in Benghazi, the Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council was the target of repeated recruitment efforts by the Islamic State (IS), which at the time was active in areas not far from, and sometimes inside, Adjabiya. However, despite IS claiming the contrary, there was no conclusive evidence that the Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council as a group ever pledged allegiance to IS. There were however defections from Ajdabiya Revolutionaries Shura Council to IS, but they were most likely caused by individual shifts of allegiance.