Libya’s internationally recognized government carried out air strikes against ISIS militants in the eastern city of Derna, a senior commander said.

The North African country is in the throes of a power truggle with two governments allied to dozens of armed groups fighting each other four years after the uprising that ousted veteran strongman leader Moammar Gadhafi.

While unable to defeat each other on several front lines across the oil-producing state, both governments have also been clashing with ISIS insurgents exploiting a security vacuum as in Iraq and Syria.

Saqer al-Joroushi, air force commander of the official Libyan government based in the east since losing control of Tripoli in August, said his warplanes had hit ISIS positions in Derna on Monday and Tuesday.

“We ask all residents to stay away from checkpoints and ISIS locations,” Joroushi told Reuters. “We also warn fishers and tankers against approaching the coast all the way to Derna.”

Egyptian jets bombed Derna in February after ISIS published a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians. ISIS and other militant groups have established a large presence in the eastern coastal town.

Critics say the official government’s outdated planes often hit civilian targets.

Two foreign seamen were killed when a Greek-operated fuel tanker docked at Derna port was bombed in January. The government said it had been transporting arms. A Tripoli-based state oil firm said it had been carrying fuel for a power plant.

The capital has been under control of a rival government and parliament set up after an armed group seized Tripoli in August by expelling a rival group allied to Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni.

Both competing governments have teamed up with former anti-Gadhafi rebels who worked together in 2011 to topple Gadhafi but now have split along regional, tribal and political lines.

Egypt is to host a meeting of Libyan tribal leaders in late May in an attempt to “support and unify the Libyan people during their crisis,” the Egyptian foreign ministry announced on Tuesday.

“Egypt will be hosting the forum of expanded Libyan tribes by the end of May as it believes in supporting the unity of Libyan people and in achieving security all over neighboring Libya, and in order to form a national unified government to pave the way for a stable state,” the ministry said.

Foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Ati said Egypt was coordinating with Libyan tribes and the United Nations to arrange the meeting.

The ministry’s statement stressed “the importance of communication between Libyan tribes and civil society in supporting “legitimate institutions in Libya.”

“The continuation of the current situation will complicate the situation more and will lead to more problems, such as the smuggling of weapons, drugs and illegal migration,” the statement read.

Since the 2011 toppling of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, rival militias have been fighting a weak central government across the country.

An internationally recognized government rules out of Tobrouk in the east, while Islamist militias control the country’s capital in the west.

Egypt drew up evacuation plans for its citizens in Libya who wish to leave the war-torn country after the Islamic State (IS) militants beheaded 20 Coptic Egyptians in Derna.

Following the release of the video which captured the gruesome killings, Egypt launched airstrikes on IS militant hideouts, in collaboration with Libya’s government.

Since the start of the civil war, thousands of Egyptian labourers have fled Libya.

Libyan sources have talked about the fall of, “a large part of the central region in Libya,” under ISIS control, as a part of the militant group’s quest to expandits influence in this country.

“Alwasat” Website quoted sources in Sirte city as saying that ISIS has imposed its control again on the area from its stronghold in the outskirts of Nofaliya city till Harawa.

ISIS has extended its control over Nofaliya , Darna, Sirte and part of Benghazi city, taking advantage of the army fight with the militias classified by the Parliament as “terrorist“.

Since ISIS appeared in Libya in October 2014, the militant group, in which several sources said that it is making alliances with some of the other militias, is seeking to expand in the country

Tunisia has always seemed an unlikely stronghold for radical jihadism, but four years after the Arab Spring the threat from Salafist violence is more urgent than ever.

For 23 years the regime of President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali sought to control all religious activities tightly and define for Tunisians exactly what their Islam should mean. Small Salafist groups began emerging in the mid-2000s as a reaction against this state monopoly and the brutality they experienced in jail, and were fueled by ideas from Gulf preachers broadcasting on satellite television.

After the fall of Ben Ali, these groups swept into the political vacuum, harnessing widespread frustration and resentment among a disenfranchised urban youth. At first, groups such as Ansar al-Shariah, the first major Salafist organization to emerge, focused on preaching, enforcing their moral code and social activism. They appealed to young, unemployed Tunisians who felt profoundly disinherited by a political and economic system that had always favored the coastal elites. Religious-minded young people sought new avenues of expression as they quickly became disenchanted with the strategic compromises of the mainstream Islamist movement Ennahda, which they regarded as mere “Islam light.” As Ennahda struggled to recruit new young members, so the Salafists grew in number.

Radicalized groups also crossed over into criminality and often became involved in drug and weapon smuggling, particularly across the porous Libyan border. As Libya descended into instability, new opportunist groups began to thrive in the smuggling trade. It became easier for armed men to train in Libya before returning to Tunisia to carry out attacks – the Bardo killers, among many others, were trained across the border.

At first the Ennahda-led coalition government was slow to understand the gravity of the problem and still believed it could moderate extremists by drawing them into one large Islamic family. After two leftist politicians, Chokri Belaid and Mohammad Brahmi, were assassinated in 2013, the government outlawed Ansar al-Shariah and arrested hundreds of young men. Since then, however, the Salafist-jihadi movement has fractured into many small groups. Too often the authorities were unwilling to distinguish between those attracted to the nonviolent preaching of Salafism, who sought to imagine a new religious vision for Tunisia, and the smaller number of radicals intent on violence.

Around 3,000 young people left to fight in Syria and Iraq, often with ISIS, and several hundred others appear to have gone to Libya too. Inside Tunisia several small groups flourished, including the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade in the Chaambi Mountains near the Algerian border, who were responsible for killing dozens of security forces in several small operations. They originally had links with the group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and seem also to be close to ISIS now.

In the face of this challenge, successive governments have tended to mount high-profile sweeping arrest operations. In 2014, at least 1,000 suspects were arrested, often from small cells. In just the first few months of this year, another 400 have been arrested, according to Prime Minister Habib Essid. The Interior Ministry has announced a number of high-profile raids in which suspects have been killed, although sometimes these brought more questions than answers.

Last month, the ministry announced security forces had killed the head of the Okba Ibn Nafaa group, which it said was responsible for the Bardo attack. But the next day a different group, calling themselves Jund al-Khilafah, claimed responsibility for the Bardo attack, declared loyalty to ISIS, and said more attacks would follow.

All governments since 2011 have favored security sector stability over reform. In the first weeks after the uprising, the political police were dissolved, but deep-rooted reform is still lacking, especially in the opaque Interior Ministry. Likewise, the judiciary remains largely unchanged from the Ben Ali era. More recently, new counterterrorism strategies have been adopted, and a new counterterrorism force has been set up.

President Beji Caid Essebsi told Tunisians after the Bardo attack that they were in a war against terrorism, vowing “We will fight them without mercy to our last breath.” But governments have favored the rhetoric of security stabilization over acknowledging the need for a political solution for the socioeconomic causes behind this crisis – alongside a discreet, intelligence-based and highly targeted counterterrorism strategy.