Isil fighters besieged as port falls in Libya stronghold

would deal a major blow to the terrorist group’s operations in Libya, a country that is becoming more important to it as it is squeezed across Syria and Iraq.

Rida Issa, a spokesman for the Libyan troops, told AFP news agency that the jihadists had been blockaded into a patch of some two square miles. He said his men had also retaken a residential area in the east of the city.

Led by a brigade from the nearby city of Misrata, pro-government troops entered Sirte on Wednesday, confounding expectations that its recapture would be long and hard. “The battle wasn’t as difficult as we thought it would be,” a Libyan government official said on Friday.

Foreign intelligence services estimate Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has 5,000 fighters in Libya, but its strength inside Sirte, which it has held for a year, is unclear. Mr Issa said 30,000 residents remain inside the city.

Yesterday, clashes appeared to be centred around the Ougadougou conference centre. Once a venue for international summits, the building is now an Isil headquarters group’s black flag.

On Friday, Washington’s special envoy in the fight against Isil, Brett that flies the McGurk, said the US was “encouraged” by the Libyan forces’ progress.

Sirte, the hometown of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, is now Isil’s last remaining stronghold in the country. The group lost its north-eastern base of Derna to local forces last year and was forced from the western town of Sabratha in February by militias and US air strikes.

The brigades are part of an operation backed by Libya’s UN-backed Government of National Accord, which arrived in Tripoli in March and has been gradually working to establish its authority. Western powers see the offensive as an important chance to unite Libya’s political and armed factions against Isil and restore a degree of stability to the oil-rich country.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda chief, has pledged allegiance to the new leader of the Afghan Taliban Haibatullah Akhundzada. He was named as the group’s new leader last month in a swift power transition after Mullah Mansour, his predecessor, was killed in a US drone strike.