DHAKA: Swathed in a white turban and robes, Eissa Abdel Majid sits in his militia barracks on the edge of the desert describing a losing battle to stem the flow of armed militants with suspected links to al-Qaeda, who use it as a freeway across northern Africa.

He says he’s fed up with trying to guard borders and oil installations in a power vacuum left by the fall of Moammar Qaddafi, ‘They are getting weapons and building their strength’, he says, ‘because the government is weak’, reports Al Arabiya.

In the rocky mountains and dune-covered wastes of southwestern Libya, al-Qaeda’s North African branch has established a haven after French and West African forces drove them out of their fledgling Islamic state in northern Mali a year ago.

Now, according to interviews with local soldiers, residents, officials and Western diplomats, it is restocking weapons and mining disaffected minorities for new recruits as it prepares to relaunch attacks.

It’s an al-Qaeda pattern seen around the world, in hot spots such as Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and increasingly here in North Africa: seemingly defeated, the terror network only retreats to remote areas, regroups and eventually bounces back, pointing to the extreme difficulties involved in stamping out the threat.

BDST: 2121 HRS, JAN 19, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor