U.S. AIRSTRIKES HAVE ALTERED THE MILITARY EQUATION ON THE GROUND IN LIBYA, BUT IN A DENSELY PACKED URBAN ENVIRONMENT, ERADICATING THE MILITANTS FROM SIRTE REMAINS A FORMIDABLE STRUGGLE.
The black flag of the Islamic State flutters above a twostorey house that serves as a sniper’s nest. The deserted street is under their control, as are all the nearby buildings. The banner and the occasional crack of the marksman’s bullet are the only signs of the militants on this afternoon.
Two blocks north, less than a football field away, Libyan militiamen are gathered with hand-held rocket launchers and Mad Maxstyle pickup trucks mounted with large machine guns. Since last Monday, U.S. airstrikes have pounded Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant targets in this battered seaside city, the stronghold of the Middle Eastern militants’ Libyan affiliate. Yet the pro-government militia forces have not crossed this front line.
“If we move forward, their snipers will be firing at us like hell,” said Suleiman Shwairf, a pro-government fighter, peering at the flag from behind a wall.
The American air intervention has altered the military equation on the ground and given a much-needed boost to the morale of the fighters battling ISIL. But in a densely packed urban environment, where territory is seized street by street and house by house, eradicating the militants from Sirte remains a formidable struggle, illuminating the limits of the U.S. air campaign.
The fall of Sirte could be a major setback to the ambitions of ISIL. But since May, when the campaign to liberate Sirte began, the militias have been confronted with a sophisticated and co-ordinated strategy used by ISIL fighters to protect their bastion in Sirte’s urban centre. Hundreds of pro-government fighters have been killed or wounded by buried mines, explosive-laden doors, tripwire bombs, suicide attackers and snipers. ISIL remains in control of roughly 70 per cent of the city’s urban area over a stretch of more than six kilometres.
In their first week, U.S. airstrikes have mostly targeted ISIL tanks and armoured personnel carriers, as well as mobile ammunition depots and rocket launchers. Now, the Islamist fighters are altering their tactics to counter the air assault, hiding their military vehicles, moving command posts frequently, and staying out of sight during the day, according to progovernment commanders.
“The armoured personnel carriers, the tanks are not their strongest weapons, anyway,” said Mohamed Darat, the top commander for the largest front-line in the city. “Their strongest weapons are the landmines, booby-traps, and the snipers. Those are the biggest problems we face.”
Still, of the several thousand ISIL militants initially in the city, most have either fled or been killed. Only an estimated 500 to 1,000 remain, and they are surrounded — by pro-government forces on land and Libyan vessels patrolling the sea. Add the American air support, and a long-term hold on Sirte by the militants seems implausible.
The questions many Libyans ask: When will the city fall? And at what human cost?
In early 2015, ISIL seized this sprawling metropolis in the heart of Libya’s oil crescent, home to most of its petrochemical resources. The birthplace of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the city was the last major stronghold of his loyalists during the revolution five years ago that toppled his regime. Gadhafi was killed here by rebel fighters in October 2011.
ISIL swiftly consolidated its grip on Sirte, using it as a base to stage attacks on oil facilities and other targets. With pressure growing on the militants’ parent body in Syria and Iraq from U.S. airstrikes and attacks by Iraqi forces, Sirte was viewed as a possible future capital of the ISIL “caliphate.”
It was those ambitions that triggered the current fighting here. When ISIL fighters advanced west up the coast in May, militia brigades from the nearby city of Misrata counterattacked. Within days, they had pushed the militants back inside Sirte, retaken the outer suburbs of the city and pushed into the urban zones.
Then their advance slowed.
The ISIL forces, a mix of foreigners and Libyans, were pummelling the brigades with tank and artillery fire. The landmines and snipers were planted on streets, at hospitals, universities and other large complexes. The militants had cached weapons, as well as supplies of food and water, in different parts of their territory.
The militants also are using creative ways to kill. They have jury-rigged refrigerators to blow up when militia fighters search houses. Bombs are planted inside bags of bread and left in visible places for their enemy to pick up. They have transformed baby monitors into voice-activated bomb triggers, and used paper clips touched together to ignite explosives.
“They are using the most devious and inhuman ways to kill our fighters,” Darat said.
In the past three months, some 400 militiamen have died, with more than 2,000 injured, according to doctors at a military field hospital outside the city. There was also anger and frustration among the fighters, who had felt abandoned by the United States and the West.
The mounting casualties and military stalemate in the city prompted Libya’s Western-backed national unity government to request the U.S. airstrikes last week.
“Now, we’re friends,” said Ahmad Mletan, 35, a doctor at the military field hospital. “The American support legitimizes our cause. We feel we are no longer alone, and the international community is with us.”
But on the front lines, the U.S. intervention, while welcome, remains bittersweet.
“It’s a little late,” Darat said. “If the Americans started supporting us from the beginning, we would have saved so many lives.” Today, Sirte is a ghost city. Nearly its entire population of 80,000 has fled. Buildings are pocked with grapefruit- sized holes from artillery rounds. Houses have been shattered by crossfire. Locked-up shops and businesses have black stamps on their walls reading in English and Arabic: “Office of General Services.”
The notice is from the ISIL tax collection department.
THEY ARE USING THE MOST DEVIOUS AND INHUMAN WAYS TO KILL OUR FIGHTERS.