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A Carabinieri (Italian paramilitary) officer patrols the area next to Villa Igiea, the site of an international conference on Libya, in Palermo, Italy, on Nov. 12, 2018.Antonio Calanni/The Associated Press

The army of European, North African and North American delegates at the Libya peace conference in Palermo represent countries with a jumble of parochial, and sometimes conflicting, interests on the Libyan file. But there is one issue that unites them all: fear that lack of Libyan stability will reinforce the broken country’s status as a hotbed for terrorism and uncontrolled migration.

The terrorism fear is especially acute because several recent attacks have been linked to the Libyan chapter of the Islamic State, which has operated training camps in lawless Libyan desert and coastal areas. In May, 2017, Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old Briton of Libyan ancestry, detonated a bomb at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester that killed 23 people and wounded 139 others. He had made several trips to Libya before his suicide mission.

The two-day conference, sponsored by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, began on Monday. Its goal, backed by the United Nations, is to plot a road map that would unite Libya – rival powers occupy the east, west and southern expanses of the Libyan territories – disarm its bewildering array of militias and draft a constitution and an electoral law that would allow a national election. The French initiative aimed at holding elections on Dec. 10 has already failed; the Italians, Libya’s former colonial masters, are trying to pick up the pieces and develop a realistic crisis-mitigation plan without specific dates and deadlines. Another diplomatic failure is possible.

Everyone seems to have a different agenda. The Italians and French are fighting for diplomatic influence in Libya and greater access to its vast oil, gas and mineral resources. The Russians would love to build a military base in eastern Libya. All the European countries want to see a stable Libyan government, backed by strong military force, that can stop the human traffickers who send thousands of migrants to their deaths in the Mediterranean every year.

Each country in Europe and across the Mediterranean dreads more Libyan-inspired terrorist attacks. “The continuation of Libya’s current situation will only attract terrorist elements, which will ultimately serve to threaten Libya’s neighbours,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who arrived Monday afternoon at the Palermo conference, said on Sunday.

Terrorist groups exploited the chaos that tore Libya apart after the 2011 civil war and the assassination late that year of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi by rebel forces, who were supported by an air campaign led by the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (Canadian CF-18 fighter-bombers flew about 10 per cent of the missions.)

After Mr. Gaddafi’s fall, terrorist organizations and human traffickers established themselves along the coast and the smuggling routes that extended into what is known as the Fezzan, the southwestern Libyan desert, next to the open borders of Algeria, Niger and Chad. Libya became a haven for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Islamic State, which set up shop in Sirte, Mr. Gaddafi’s hometown. Diplomats at the Palermo conference say that Libya is perhaps the world’s most prolific breeding ground for terrorists and traffickers.

While many of the terrorists on Libya’s Mediterranean coast have been wiped out, it is widely known that they operate sleeper cells that can strike with deadly force. Earlier this year, the Islamic State attacked the headquarters of the Libyan National Oil Corp. in Tripoli. AQIM operates largely unhindered in parts of southern Libya. If the Libyan security situation were not bad enough, hardened Libyan fighters are returning from the Syrian civil war and no doubt joining terrorist groups or the criminal gangs making fortunes by shaking down the migrants determined to reach Europe.

The terrorist attacks have not been limited to Libya, as the Manchester massacre has shown. To Libya’s immediate west, tiny Tunisia, the Arab Spring’s only successful democracy, has suffered three big attacks since 2015, including the tourist massacres in Sousse and at the Bardo Museum in Tunis. In each case, the perpetrators could be traced back to an Islamic State training camp and smuggling centre in Sabratha, to the west of Tripoli.

Libyans and their neighbours across the Mediterranean know that terrorism could erupt at any time as long as Libya remains divided and overrun by militias. One of the main worries is the infamous Mitiga prison at the Tripoli airport, which occupies the site of the former Wheelus airbase, the United States' biggest foreign military installation until the late 1960s. The enormous prison is packed with Islamic terrorists, real and suspected, and is controlled by RADA, the Tripoli presidential council’s gun-for-hire special deterrence force.

Rival militias have attacked the prison to try to spring the militants trapped inside. The most recent attack happened early this year and was reportedly directed by a militia leader named Bashir Khalfallah – widely known by his nickname “the Cow.” The fighting shut the airport, damaged several passenger planes and spread into the city, killing about 20 people. Michel Cousins, editor-in-chief of the Libya Herald online newspaper, said a breach of the prison is a nightmare scenario that could unleash hundreds or perhaps more than 1,000 fighters (the exact number of prisoners is not known), “though they could be massacred by rival militias if they got out.”

By Monday late afternoon, Italian time, the roster of high-profile guests at the Palermo conference was starting to build. The names of those expected or confirmed included Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev, European Council President Donald Tusk and Khalifa Haftar, the powerful warlord in eastern Libya who is supported by the French and the Egyptians. The Libyan crisis began seven years ago and, in spite of periodic bouts of relative calm since then, remains a powder keg, one that the delegates in Palermo know could trigger deadly waves of terrorism unless Mr. Conte’s conference produces some results.

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