AKE has lowered the security risk rating for Libya following an improvement in conditions in recently liberated parts of the country. It is now rated at 35 on AKE’s 1-100 scale which is a notable improvement from the ratings of 63 and 64 which the country was assigned between March and October.
However, the rating denotes that ongoing internal tensions could result in bloodshed and the operating environment should still be considered potentially hostile. There remain concerns over the ability of the NTC to oversee stability. The organisation will have to reign in the large number of former rebel fighters now roaming major cities. Recent clashes between rebel factions reportedly left a number of people dead in Tripoli, while there remains a general concern over the widespread distribution of weapons throughout the country. Reports indicate that many of the militia leaders are abandoning a pledge to give up their weapons and many claim they intend to preserve their autonomy and influence political decisions as “guardians of the revolution.
AKE assesses that gathering Libya’s disparate revolutionary forces under one umbrella controlled by the NTC represents the greatest immediate challenge to the country’s interim leaders. The AKE risk rating is likely to remain elevated until the NTC can prove it has the ability to create unity among disparate armed groups and ensure security throughout the country.
The AKE security risk rating scale expresses how dangerous countries and regions are around the world. A rating of 1 denotes a stable and largely safe security environment, whereas 100 denotes the highest level of risk. Most of Europe falls within the 1-10 scale. The United Kingdom is currently ranked at 7. Afghanistan is now the highest rated country, sitting at 53.
Alan Fraser is a Libya specialist with AKE, a British risk mitigation company working in Libya throughout the crisis. You can access AKE’s intelligence website Global Intake here, and you can obtain a free trial of AKE’s Iraq intelligence reports here.
