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Sirte / AFP
Forces loyal to Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) said on Saturday they have launched a new attack on diehards of the IS group in the coastal city of Sirte.
Backed by weeks of US air strikes, the pro-GNA forces have recaptured nearly all of what had been the extremists’ main stronghold in North Africa.
“We are attacking the last IS positions in district three,” a GNA fighter said. The GNA forces media centre confirmed on Facebook that the attack had begun.
“Our forces are advancing inside the areas where IS is, in district three, and so far have taken control of” two banks and a hotel, the media centre said.
It also said they had thwarted an attempted suicide bombing.
One pro-government fighter had been killed, the Misrata hospital’s Facebook page said.
An AFP journalist saw ambulances leaving Sirte Misrata to the west. The forces loyal to the UN-backed GNA had said last weekend they were preparing to “liberate” the entire city after seizing several IS positions, including its headquarters. On Wednesday, GNA head Fayez Al-Sarraj visited Sirte for the first time since loyalist forces launched their offensive more than three months ago to drive the extremists from the city.
Sarraj and some of his ministers toured former front lines as well as the Ouagadougou conference centre which IS had used as its base. “We will continue to chase, with the help of God, the IS remnants and strike them wherever they may be in our country,” Sarraj said this week.
The capture of the city by IS last year sparked fears that the extremists would use it as a springboard for attacks on Europe. The Sunni extremists took advantage of the chaos in oil-rich Libya after the 2011 uprising to seize Sirte in June 2015, hoisting their black flag above the city.
The offensive on the ground has been backed by US air power.
On Friday, the United States Africa Command said that since the US campaign began on August 1, US drones, helicopters and bombers had carried out a total of 108 air strikes against the extremists in Sirte.