The Head of the Presidential Council of the UN-brokered Government of National Accord (GNA) Fayez Al-Serraj, discussed the latest about the US military assistance to the GNA-backed forces in the war against terrorism in Sirte with the Chief US Africa Command (Africom) Thomas D. Waldhauser, and US delegate to Libya Jonathan winer in Stuttgart, Germany.

Al-Serraj alomg with his political adviser Al-Sinni and the chief of Security Preparations Commission, Al-Taweel, received confirmations that the US will keep on supporting the GNA and the Presidential Council in order to create a stable and secure Libya after rooting out IS militants from the country.

“Libya would like to receive the US military expertise and training for the forces in the country so as to build a strong army. We would like to cooperate with the US in the information exchange regarding any terrorist acts in the region.” Al-Serraj told the US officials.

He added that the GNA and Libyans appreciate the aid of the US military and air force in the war against IS in Sirte and in the push for a better and stable Libya.

libyanexpress.com

Algerian forces have cleared out Daesh-affiliated militants from the mountains east of Algiers, two years after they kidnapped and beheaded a French tourist in the former Al Qaeda stronghold, senior security sources said.

Algeria, emerging from a 1990s war with armed militants, has been carrying out operations to flush out remnants of militants from Jund Al-Khilafa, or “Soldiers of the Caliphate,” who had declared themselves allied with Daesh.

Bombings and attacks are rarer in Algeria since it ended its decade-long war, but Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is still active and a small group of rival militants tied to Daesh also began operating east of the capital.

Algeria’s clearing out Daesh allies comes as the group battles to hold its North Africa base in the Libyan city of Sirte.

Tunisian militants with Daesh in the Libyan city of Sabratha were hit by a US air strike in February.

Since Frenchman Herve Gourdel was killed in September 2014 in Algeria, troops have swept through the Kabilye region, a mountainous and heavily forested area once known as part of the “Triangle of Death” during Algeria’s bloody 1990s war.

“The group has been dismantled, most of its commanders were killed or arrested.

It is over,” one senior security source told Reuters, asking his name not be used because he was not authorised to speak to media.

Mopping up Daesh in the north will allow Algeria’s army to focus on southern borders with Libya, Mali and Niger where fleeing militants may try to slip across its frontiers, the source familiar with the operations said.

A second security source said Jund Al-Khilafa has been militarily defeated over the past few months in regions including Bouira, Boumerdes and Tizi Ouzou, all the east of the capital.

Most of its commanders had been killed or arrested and its structure has been dismantled, the source said.

“Most of those killed or arrested in the northern regions of Algeria, including Tizi Ouzou, Boumerdes and Bouira belonged to Jund Al-Khilafa,” the source said.

While security forces pursue Jund Al-Khilafa, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been little visible in the area east of Algiers in the past two years, leading to questions whether AQIM commander Abdelmalek Droudkel fled the region usually considered his base of operations.

gulftoday.ae/

Tunisia has begun receiving the first Bell OH-58D Kiowa Warrior and Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, an image posted online indicates.

The image posted on the forcesdz.com forum for the Algerian, Tunisian, and wider Maghreb armed forces on 20 August purportedly shows the first of 24 Kiowa Warrior observation and light attack helicopters for the Tunisian Air Force at an undisclosed airfield in the country. One of 12 Black Hawk utility and transport helicopters due to be delivered can be seen in the background.

The Tunisian Air Force has four main helicopter operating bases at Bizerte-Sidi Ahmed near the country’s northern Mediterranean coast, Bizerte-La Karouba on the northern coast; Sfax-El Maou on the eastern seaboard, and Gafsa in the interior, and it is likely that the image was taken at one of these locations.

Requests for confirmation of the delivery from the Tunisian Ministry of National Defence, the US Army, and the US Embassy in Tunisia had not been answered by the time IHS Jane’s went to press.

The order of 24 Kiowa Warrior helicopters for Tunisia was approved by the US government in early May. At that time, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said that the USD100.8 million deal would include Excess Defense Articles (EDA) helicopters, as well as weapon systems, defensive aids, night-vision goggles (NVGs), communications and navigation systems, training, and support.

The announcement of the proposed sale of 24 Kiowa Warriors to Tunisia came on the back of a US Department of Defense (DoD) contract for four ‘modified’ UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopters announced on 30 June 2015. All 12 Black Hawks are scheduled to be in-country by the end of June 2019.

janes.com

Under the scorching midday sun and the rattle of heavy artillery and Kalashnikov fire, three men on the Libyan coast are deactivating mines with electricians’ pliers, clad in flak jackets and helmets that will do them little good if a device detonates.

“One mistake here and basically you’re dead,” Mohammed*, 40, tells IRIN.

He is carrying three newly deactivated devices, including a frighteningly realistic fake rock packed with explosives. He is taking them off the battlefield in Sirte, where Libyan forces are edging closer to defeating the so-called Islamic State.

The militant group’s mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have already left hundreds of Libyan fighters dead and maimed and, as government forces continue to advance into the centre of the town, poorly equipped demining units are struggling to deal with the aftermath.

International demining organisations are loath to work in Libya – a position that won’t have been helped by the death of a British de-mining expert in the Iraqi city of Ramadi on Monday – so these explosives threaten to leave a terrifying legacy for civilians long after the war is over.

Understaffed and unprepared

Just 200 metres ahead of Mohammed and his colleagues, a child’s bicycle lies in the middle of the road. It looks innocent but the men have spotted a trap; a thin wire leads from the bike to a rigged tank shell.

Anyone attempting to use the road would have to move the bicycle, triggering the explosive mechanism. To add to the danger, Mohammed explains that the ground on either side of the road is also mined.

His unit – part of the intelligence services of one of Libya’s three governments – was drafted in to help when Libyan fighters found the sheer numbers of mines and IEDs in Sirte unmanageable.

The assault on the city, led by fighters from the UN-backed Government of National Unity and the Tripoli-based government Mohammed is loyal to, began in May.

It has really put Mohammed’s skills to the test. Trained in the United States back in 2004, he said IS has used tactics he’s never seen before. Retreating militants have left a trail of devices across each district of the town, many disguised as, or rigged to, everyday objects.

“This stuff never existed before in Libya. We never saw a range of devices like these,” he says.

Doors, windows, even furnishings, have been connected to explosives.

It’s been deadly for the Libyan forces. Brigadier General Mohammed al-Ghasri, a spokesman for the military operation in Sirte, told IRIN that mines and IEDs had killed more than 400 fighters and injured another 2,000.

The dead include four commanders of military engineering units that specialise in deactivating and removing IEDs. Another demining officer lost both his arms when a device he was working on exploded.

“No international organisations or governments have given us any help with demining operations or even provided us with equipment we desperately need, such as metal detectors for finding mines,” al-Ghasri complained. “If the international community had helped us with this, we could have avoided a lot of bloodshed and losses.”

Al-Ghasri said the engineering units had dismantled 200 IEDs in the last fortnight alone. “But every day we find more and more, including explosives rigged with transparent fishing wire in civilian homes.”

In recently liberated districts of Sirte, fighters have uncovered makeshift factories where IS has been hand-crafting explosives, including grenades, bombs and IEDs.

In one sprawling farm in the Hay Dollar district of Sirte, once a villa-lined luxury area favoured by former ruler Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle, soldiers found dozens of bags of fertiliser piled next to metal components, ready to be packed into bombs to create lethal shrapnel.

There were pipe joints stuffed with explosives, racks of chemicals and gas masks, as well as bomb “recipes”.

In addition to these urban stockpiles, fighters have to deal with desert expanses and exposed rural areas on the coastline that IS controlled until recently.

“We desperately need help with special technologies for detecting IEDs and mines,” said army officer Salah Jarbar, standing on charred tarmac outside the ruins of a police station destroyed two months ago by an IS car bomb in the village of Abu Grain.

Abu Grain’s outlying desert, 150 kilometres west of Sirte, was left heavily mined by IS. Like al-Ghasri, Jarbar said even metal detectors would be of great help. “They are a cheap technology but really we need a lot of them.”

The threat to civilians

Once Libyan forces finish off IS in Sirte, al-Ghasri estimates it will take at least another five months to clear the town of mines, IEDs, and unexploded ordnance.

A number of international humanitarian demining outfits, including Handicap International and the Mines Advisory Group (MAG International) were active in Libya after the 2011 uprising until fighting in Tripoli in 2014 prompted embassies and international organisations to flee the country. Libya’s ongoing instability, including in the capital, has left most wary of returning.

“MAG is not working in Libya and we currently have no plans to restart,” MAG Fundraising and Communications Assistant Gayle Gabe told IRIN. As of September 2013, MAG alone said it had removed more than 495,000 explosive remnants of war across the country, including those found in ammunition stockpiles.

For now, local people living in former IS-controlled territory live in fear that any accidental stumble could be their last.

In the Ghardabiya district south of Sirte, a former teacher still too scared of IS retribution to give his name, said that with the group gone explosives were now his greatest fear and called on the international community to pitch in.

“We urgently need international mine-clearance organisations to come and check the areas around Sirte, especially in the desert areas, because there are just so many mines there,” he said. “We are afraid for our children and we are afraid for our future.”

Other areas already liberated from IS have begun to see the consequences of explosives left untended, with shepherds and herdsmen – whose livestock roam significant distances – in particular danger.

One shepherd from Bin Jawad, a town freed from IS in late May, has already fallen victim.

While searching for his sheep in late July, the shepherd drove over a suspected IS mine 10 kilometres south of the town. Local civil society activist Fadiel Fadel described the man – who sustained only minor injuries mainly from the shattered glass windows of his truck – as lucky, but said the incident showed the threat locals face.

As displaced former residents started to return to their homes after Bin Jawad was liberated, military engineering units dismantled IEDs left in homes but did not have the capacity to comb the outlying desert areas for mines, the activist explained.

“Mines are really dangerous and difficult, especially for farmers, and here we are looking at large areas that can’t be explored or cleared easily,” Fadel said. “The situation is quite critical and I don’t think Libya has the capacity to manage this problem alone.”

irinnews.org

The Libyan forces of Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous found large amounts of gold, money, Tunisian currency, phone airtime cards and weapons at the Hisbah headquarters (Court) of IS terrorists in Sirte.

This discovery of those sums of money and gold came on Monday after the Misurata-led forces uprooted IS militants from Neighborhood 1 trapping them in very narrow area within Neighborhood 3.

The media office of Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous operation of the UN-brokered Government of National Accord said its Misurata-led forces had advanced into the last two spots of IS militants in Sirte in Neighbourhoods 1 and 3.

The media office added on its Facebook page that the forces captured the interior security building, Al-Naga neighbourhood, and Al-Shabiya area.

The spokesman of the operation, Muhammad Al-Ghasri also said that IS terrorists only control Neighbourhood 3 and Al-Jizah buildings as they also captured most areas in Neighbourhood 1 like Sahari Bank, Al-Hisba Court of IS, Dubai St., Al-Ribat mosque, where an IS militant from Bahrain called Turki Al-Banali Al-Bahraini used to preach.

“IS militants have fortified the last hideouts with mines on the ground and snipers on rooftops hindering any advance on foot and making it a must for shelling by artillery and by airstrikes.” Indicated Al-Ghasri.

Misurata Central Hospital announced Sunday that it received over 63 injured fighters from the Misurata-led forces due to the ongoing clashes in Sirte.

libyanexpress.com

After nearly a month of airstrikes against the Islamic State fighters dug in around the Libyan city of Sirte, U.S. helicopter gunships have been dispatched to help root out the extremist group from some of the denser parts of the city.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations, said Marine AH-1W SuperCobra helicopters participated in strikes against the Islamic State over the weekend. According to a U.S. Africa Command release, U.S. forces conducted nine strikes from Friday to Sunday, targeting Islamic State fighting positions and vehicles.

The Islamic State fighters have retreated “to the densest, most built-up part of the city,” the official said. “[The AH-1] is a platform that lends itself well to that kind of mission.”

Helicopter gunships are usually best directed to their targets when they receive directions from combat air controllers on the ground, known as JTACs. While the United States has a small detachment of Special Operations forces in Sirte, most of the targeting information for the airstrikes there is being relayed to U.S. forces through Libyan government troops.

Outfitted with a 20mm cannon, rockets and missiles, the AH-1W SuperCobra is one of the newer variants of a helicopter that first saw combat in the later years of the Vietnam War. Currently, the United States Marine Corps operates the AH-1W SuperCobra and AH-1Z Viper as its premier gunships when it comes to supporting Marines on the ground. The Cobra and Viper often fly in what is called a mixed section, meaning the gunship usually flies along with UH-1 Huey, a transport helicopter outfitted with sensors and armed with heavy machine guns and rockets.

Until recently, the airstrikes in Sirte have been carried out by fixed-wing aircraft, such as the AV-8B Harrier ground attack jets. Helicopter gunships, such as the Cobra, fly low and slow and are able to attack targets more directly and systematically than, say, a jet that releases a bomb while screeching overhead at hundreds of miles an hour. Yet gunships, flying at low altitude and low speed, are more at risk of getting shot down by ground fire and shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, or MANPADS. The man-portable launchers have been widely proliferated throughout Libya and the region after large stocks of the devices were looted from government stores after the collapse of Moammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011.

Since Aug. 1, the United States has been striking targets in Sirte primarily from the USS Wasp, an aging amphibious assault ship stationed off the Libyan coast. About 200 feet shorter than a full-fledged Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier, the Wasp can support a complement aircraft, including Harriers, MV-22 Ospreys, Cobra gunships and Huey transport helicopters.

The Harriers, Cobras and Hueys belong to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 264, the aviation component of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU. The MEU has been almost entirely responsible for the strikes against the Islamic State in Sirte, though the aircraft flying from the Wasp is only one component of the unit. The 22 MEU has a ground component, known as a Battalion Landing Team, as well as a logistics detachment called a Combat Logistics Battalion. Combined, the three elements make a self-sustaining strike force than can be shuttled around the globe in a relatively short amount of time.

washingtonpost.com

In the latest push to drive out Islamic State (Isis) militants from the coastal city of Sirte, Libyan forces have captured the city’s main mosque and a prison held by the terror group.

Advancing in their three-month campaign against the militants, the forces loyal to the UN-backed government said on Sunday (21 August) they were close to seizing the whole of Sirte.

The forces were mainly brigades from the neighbouring city of Misrata and have confined the militants to smaller areas in the city centre.

The fighters have been backed by US air strikes since 1 August and as of 18 August, the US had launched 65 strikes over Sirte. The forces are also using heavy artillery and tanks. While making advances, they seized a building that the jihadists were using for moral policing, Reuters quoted spokesman Rida Issa as saying.

The clashes on Sunday claimed the lives of at least nine brigade fighters and injured 85 others, Misrata hospital spokesman Akram Gliwan said.

According to the government troops’ press office, the fighters took over the city’s biggest Ribat mosque after heavy fighting. It added that the fighters found “dozens” of the militants’ bodies in the newly captured areas but did not reveal the specific numbers as the forces were not sure when the extremists were killed.

The mosque was reportedly being used for discourses and preaching by some senior Isis members, including a leading ideologue of the group, Turki Ben Ali.

In the recent clashes with the US-backed Libyan forces, the militants are said to be losing vast swathes of territory in their last bastion in the country. The terror group is reported to have often hit back with suicide attacks.

Libya descended into turmoil after the killing of long-time dictator Muammar Gadhaffi in 2011. The rival parliaments and governments have since remained divided in the capital Tripoli and the eastern part of the country.

Libyan forces began their offensive for Sirte in May but their advances had to be slowed down due to major casualties caused by IS landmines and snipers. Losing Sirte will be a major blow to the militants who took control of the city last year, although those who escaped the battle in the city, or are located elsewhere in the country are reportedly likely to take advantage of the chaos.

ibtimes.co.uk

Air force units of Libya’s Government of National Accord launched an operation on Saturday to cut off potential escape routes for militants holed up in the coastal city of Sirte, Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous forces said.

The forces of the Government of National Accord (GNA), on their Facebook page, said the surveillance operation covered central Libya and the western region up to the border with Tunisia in Ras Ajdair.

On the other hand, the US Command in Africa (AFRICOM) said the US warplanes have carried out 65 airstrikes until last Thursday when it bombed IS locations in Sirte three times.

The US, which started bombarding IS in Sirte on August 1st under the request of the UN-brokered Government of National Accord, named this operation as Odyssey Lightning, which comes as a follow-up operation to the NATO’s Odyssey Dawn operation that helped topple dictator Muamar Gaddafi in 2011.

libyanexpress.com

Russian ships launched three cruise missiles from the Mediterranean Sea against targets in Syria. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, an al-Nusra Front command post and base were destroyed.

Russian ships launched thee Kalibr cruise missiles at targets in Syria. The missiles were fired from ships of the Black Sea Fleet, Zeleny Dol and Serpukhov, located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. A command post and base belonging to the al-Nusra Front near the village of Dar Taaza were destroyed, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday, August 19.

The report noted that a mortar ammunition production facility and warehouse of weapons in Aleppo province were also destroyed.

The Russian military recently requested permission from Iran and Iraq to allow cruise missiles to travel through their airspaces.

Russia has carried out cruise missile strikes on Syria on two other occasions, on October 7, 2015, and November 20.

uawire.org

A hotel in Beirut was the scene of a series of secret meetings Aug. 8-11 between a diplomatic delegation that included representatives from Western countries and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and a delegation composed of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) leaders. The meetings were not covered in the media and no press statements were issued; the outcomes of the discussions were not made public. However, Al-Monitor was able to meet with a PMU faction leader who participated in those meetings at a hotel he was staying at in Beirut’s surroundings. The leader spoke on condition of anonymity about the meetings in Beirut and the situation in Baghdad.

The meetings were kept secret for several reasons, including security considerations so as to ensure the safety of the members of the Western delegation and Iraqi attendees that included military officials. Also, it is worth noting that the relations between the PMU and the countries represented in the delegation are not public.

The PMU delegation left Beirut feeling more confident about its position and its future. The PMU leader promised Al-Monitor more advanced political developments in the relationship between the PMU and the West after the liberation of Mosul. “If liberating Fallujah brought us to Beirut, what will the liberation of Mosul bring?” he said.

The text of the interview follows:

Al-Monitor:  What can you tell us about the meeting?

PMU leader:  This meeting was held as a result of efforts deployed by one of the UN organizations operating in Iraq today [which he did not disclose]. Several weeks ago, this organization suggested to the PMU leadership to meet with several Western diplomats involved in the Iraqi situation and its developments. After liberating Fallujah in June 2016, the diplomats exerted more pressure to meet with us. The only problem was the time and place of the meeting, but we finally agreed to meet here in Beirut.

Al-Monitor:  Can you tell us who participated in the meeting?

PMU leader:  The PMU was represented by a delegation of 12 people, representing most of the PMU leaderships in Iraq including brigades’ commanders, politicians and officials in charge of the various activities of our team. The other party was composed of a large number of Western diplomats from several countries, including Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Italy and Germany, as well as representatives of NGOs and of course the UN organization that launched the initiative. Each of these delegations was composed of one or more officials from [the country’s] foreign ministry, as well as one or more diplomats from the countries’ embassies in Beirut or Baghdad.

Two main parties involved in our cause — namely the United States and Britain — were absent from the meeting, although we were asked when we were invited to the meeting whether we had any reservations about meeting them. We asserted that we had no reservations at all. But we later found out from some of the participants in Beirut that the Americans and the British preferred not to participate in this meeting, and rather test the waters [of this first meeting] and gather information from their allies [Western delegation] before holding a direct dialogue with us.

Al-Monitor:  What did they [the United States and Britain] want to check, and what were the issues discussed at the meetings?

PMU leader:  Discussions lasted for several hours [every day] and covered almost everything. The Western delegation wanted to meet with us for several reasons. First, the delegation members wanted to know how we see the future of the regulatory and institutional relationship between us [PMU] and the Iraqi government authorities. They know that a government decree was issued under No. 91, which approved the integration of the PMU into the official Iraqi authority. This is why they [Western delegation] wanted to know if we intend to fully merge within the Iraqi army. Our answer was clear. We will be a military force that is part of the Iraqi state, but not part of the Iraqi army. This is due to many reasons that we explained to them, namely the corruption spread within the Iraqi government institutions, and I think they understood our point of view. We made it clear that we will be an alternative army subordinated to the state, just like Iran’s [Islamic] Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Second, the Western delegation wanted to know if we are ready to integrate into the political process in Iraq. We were also clear on this point; we asserted that we launched preparations to run in the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary elections in 2017. It seemed clear that the Western delegation expects us to score significant results in these elections and this is why they asked us about our vision of future alliances, the shape of power in Baghdad and the various scenarios after the elections. They also asked us about our perception on many issues related to the concept of governance, including our relations with the Iraqi internal parties and our stance on the regional and neighboring powers and entities.

Al-Monitor:  What were your answers to those questions?

PMU leader:  We were clear and firm. We asserted that we have no other enemy in Iraq but terrorism and extremist organizations represented by the Islamic State, and we have no problem with any other party. In terms of our relations with the various components of the Iraqi people, we stressed that the PMU emerged from all spectrums of the Iraqi people. The Western participants noticed from the start of our meetings that our delegation is composed of members representing the various spectrums of the Iraqi people, as we included Shiite officials, two commanders from the Sunni factions within the PMU as well as a commander of a Christian faction too.

As for the neighboring countries, we explained that we want our country to be sovereign and stable and to open up to its regional surrounding. This is what we will seek to achieve.

Al-Monitor:  Is there something special that drew your attention during the meeting?

PMU leader:  All of the members of our delegation agreed that the discussions with the German delegation were the highlight of the meetings. The Germans made sure to meet our delegation privately for an entire day and to rediscuss all of the issues [that were discussed with the rest of the delegation]. After hours of dialogue, the senior member of the German delegation told us, “We believe that you will win the next elections, and you will be key partners in the governance of Iraq. Therefore, the PMU and the West must be aware of the importance of this victory and start acting on this basis.”

And because they insisted on meeting us alone and discussing the same issues, we deduced that the Germans were actually representing the United States — which was absent from the meetings — and that this meeting is a preliminary step that paves the way for subsequent direct or indirect contacts [with the United States].

al-monitor.com