y-four hours and led some Libyan border officials to seek refuge in Tunisia. After a ceasefire and several days of negotiation, Juwaili and Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) reached an agreement that handed over control to official government authorities but required that Juwaili provide oversight and integrate local armed groups into the effort. The agreement, however, has largely not been implemented on the ground and has caused significant tension within Zuwara. The mayor, Hafez Ben Sassi, has accused Juwaili of forcibly taking control from ethnic Amazigh forces from Zuwara and has questioned if the GNA had in fact ordered the attack. Juwaili himself told a Libyan radio station that his offensive was part of a larger plan to establish “state control” over the entire road leading to the border.
In separate statement, another Libyan military officer, Brigadier General Hafez al-Ghali, argued that the Presidential Guard, a GNA-aligned military unit, had actually previously appointed him to protect the crossing in 2016. What seems likely is that the murky incident at Abu Khammash was an abortive attempt by the GNA’s Presidential Guard to use Juwaili and his forces to project its authority on the border, demonstrating once again how local rivalries and political disarray on the Libyan side negatively impact border stability.
Further destabilizing the situation is the counterterrorism narrative surrounding border enforcement, which has enabled local militias to consolidate their power on the pretext of fighting transnational jihadism. During one of the authors’ visit to the town of Sabratha—following the early 2016 U.S. strike on a self-proclaimed Islamic State training facility run by a Sabrathan local—a Libyan militia commander named Ahmed al-Dabbashi (or “al-Ammu”) rallied with rival clans and armed groups against Islamic State fighters inside the town and its environs. The anti–Islamic State offensive helped make al-Ammu the preeminent smuggling boss in the area (until he fled in late 2017 and was later targeted in June 2018 by UN Security Council–imposed sanctions for his involvement in human trafficking). Sabratha’s battles against the Islamic State also cast suspicion on the Tunisian expatriate worker community because many Islamic State fighters in Sabratha were Tunisian nationals.
However, despite this unstable environment, many Tunisian and Libyan residents living along the border do not view the broadening security efforts as a positive development. For example, many respondents in a 2016 survey of inhabitants from the Tunisian border towns Ben Guerdane and Dehiba viewed the tightening of restrictions and the absence of local development as a greater threat than jihadism. This is likely because 90.2 percent of people in Ben Guerdane and 89.6 percent in Dehiba consider the border a financial resource. Both Tunisian and Libyan residents’ antipathy toward border enforcement and closures has given rise to frequent protests, anger, and even violence. As a 2017 World Bank report notes, the main means of livelihood in Tunisia-Libya border towns are contraband goods and informal trade, with alternative jobs or sources of income being difficult to find.
Demonstrating this frustration, in June 2018, several Tunisian protesters blocked Ben Guerdane’s main road, which trucks use to export goods to Libya, citing mistreatment at the Ras Jedir border, as well as “unfair” Libyan trade policies. In July, as these protests turned to harassment and attacks on Libyans transiting Ben Guerdane, the Libyan government closed the border, raising diplomatic tensions with Tunisia. As of mid-August, the municipalities of Ben Guerdane and Zuwara were engaged in talks to re-open the border, which included forming a bilateral committee.
The latest closure follows a similar incident in early 2017, when Tunisian protesters disrupted border traffic in Ben Guerdane after Libyan efforts to clamp down on border smuggling, creating what local Tunisians described as a “narrowing” of their ability to trade. Video footage capturing some of thes