Tamer El-Ghobashy and Hassan Morajea
June 13, 2016
Libya Forces Advance on Islamic State Stronghold
Forces aligned with Libya’s internationally backed unity government closed in on the center of the Islamic State stronghold of Sirte during the weekend, giving a boost to an administration struggling to unite the fractured nation.
In the past three weeks, militias that recently threw their support behind the government captured about 80% of Sirte and on Sunday pushed deeper into the city, said Ismail Shukri, head of military intelligence for the militias.
“We have not been able to keep many prisoners to help us with information about the organization in Libya,” he said. “Most of them blow themselves up before they can be taken alive.”
The offensive has been surprisingly quick and successful, military and intelligence officials said. Some 150 miles of Mediterranean coastline that Islamic State had controlled around Sirte has been reduced to about 50 miles in less than a month, the officials said.
After more than two years under two rival governments that effectively split the country, Libya’s unity government moved into the capital Tripoli in March. But it has had difficulty asserting its authority across the troubled country.
In May, the new government won the support of militias from the city of Misrata, which is between Tripoli and Sirte, to launch an offensive against Islamic State in Sirte. The militants took advantage of Libya’s chaos in recent years to establish a foothold in the city, which is the hometown of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Earlier this year, American and Libyan officials estimated that some 5,000 fighters had massed in Sirte and they feared Islamic State was trying to make the city its North African capital as it came under attack in its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
The militants have lost key cities such as Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria in recent months and are now fighting off new offensives in both countries.
American officials earlier this year began mapping out a military strategy to hit the group in Sirte, fearing it would become a new launchpad for Islamic State to attack Libya’s North African neighbors and Europe.
The U.S., France and the U.K. have special forces on the ground in Libya advising armed groups opposed to Islamic State, the prime minister of the unity government, Faiez Serraj, said last week.
A fighter with the Misrata militias on the front line said Sunday that Islamic State militants have been holed up in three districts in the city center where they have positioned many snipers and have likely rigged explosives around buildings they still control.
The militia member said jet fighters under the control of the Misrata militias have been pounding the districts while ground forces prepare for an assault led by armored vehicles expected to begin in the next few days.
The Libyan coast guard has secured the port of Sirte, leaving the insurgents virtually surrounded with few outlets for escape, he said.
“Once we get the order, we’ll attack and it will be over soon after that,” he said.
Fathi Bashaga, a Libyan politician involved in the U.N.-backed process that helped establish the unity government, said the advance on Sirte will pressure holdouts who have been skeptical of the new government’s authority.
“We are now one team fighting for the same goal. And this will keep us united, as our goal is a safe and stable Libya,” he said.
The effort to retake Sirte is being commanded by Col. Mehdi al-Barghathi, the defense minister of the unity government, who brought together two powerful armed groups under the government’s banner.
Those two groups, known as the Misrata Brigades, began their assault on Islamic State from west of Sirte while another militia, known as the Petroleum Facility Guard, attacked from the east.
Libyans and their foreign partners saw nominating Col. Barghathi as a way to try to win support for the unity government from another pivotal figure who had resisted the effort, Gen. Khalifa Haftar.
Col. Barghathi is a former deputy of Gen. Haftar, who commanded the military forces of one of the two former rival governments, based in eastern Libya.
Gen. Haftar has vowed to oppose the unity government because it includes Islamist figures.
Regional powers and many Libyans view Gen. Haftar as the most effective fighter of Islamist extremists in Libya. European and U.N. officials said after the unity government was set up that his support would be critical.
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