The US military launched six drone strikes against Islamic State positions in Libya, months after militants were driven from safe havens there, like reported by theage.com.au.
Officials announced the operation on Sunday, saying 17 militants had been killed and three vehicles destroyed when unmanned aircraft targeted a desert camp about 240 kms south-east of Sirte, a coastal city where ISIS fighters were defeated by US-backed Libyan forces last September.
Sirte served as an important logistics and planning hub for ISIS leaders, and it was considered a potential fallback if the terror group were to lose its de facto capital in Syria.
The attack on Friday comes as President Donald Trump seeks to further relax restrictions on attacking terrorists outside active war zones. Since assuming office in January, his administration has sought to roll back Obama-era regulations restricting strikes that put civilians at risk or where there is no “continued and imminent threat” to US personnel.
The operation was the first reported US strike inside Libya since late-January, when an estimated 80 ISIS militants were killed 50 kms from the Mediterranean coast.
In a statement, US Africa Command said ISIS militants strategically capture ungoverned territory to recruit and plot attacks, including in Europe. Army Major Audricia Harris, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said the strikes were carried out by unmanned aircraft but would not say which model. MQ-9 Reaper drones have been used for similar strikes in Libya.
The Pentagon maintains a small presence in Libya, mostly special operations troops and joint terminal attack controllers who can direct airstrikes from the ground. The US often relies on Libyan government troops to pass on coordinates.
Libya has been engulfed in conflict since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011. US forces began targeting ISIS there in early 2016, when the militant group had upwards of 6000 fighters spread throughout Sirte and surrounding areas. By this spring, officials estimated only 200 or so remained in Libya.
In the January attack, one of the last conducted during the Obama administration, two B-2 bombers and an unspecified number of Reaper aircraft unleashed nearly 100 weapons on ISIS training camps south-west of Sirte. At the time, US officials declared the operation a potent blow to the Islamic State’s dwindling presence in the region.
Claudia Gazzini, senior Libya analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the recent strikes did not indicate ISIS militants had regained strength, but confirmed assessments that scattered militants were capable of massing to strike forces in a 160 km to 240 km bubble to Sirte’s south and east.
Though the location of the camps was not released, Gazzini said it is in the rough geographic area of Al Fuqaha, where ISIS militants attacked a Libyan National Army checkpoint and beaded nine soldiers and two civilians in August, Newsweek reported. ISIS militants attacked a town east of Sirte this month and conducted services at a mosque there, Gazzini said.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in London on September 14 to discuss simmering conflicts, including Libya, though Gazzini said it appears the US will continue to deal with violence in the country from the air.
“This strike seems to indicate Libya is mainly an anti-terrorism file and only subsequently a political file” for the US government, she said.
