Daesh shifts to desert valleys after Sirte loss

Militants are trying to foment chaos by cutting power and water supplies and to identify receptive communities

Daesh militants have shifted to desert valleys and inland hills southeast of Tripoli as they seek to exploit Libya’s political divisions after defeat in their former stronghold of Sirte, security officials say.

The militants, believed to number several hundred and described as “remnants” of Daesh’s Libya operation, are trying to foment chaos by cutting power and water supplies and to identify receptive local communities, the officials said.

They are being monitored through aerial surveillance and on-the-ground intelligence, but Libyan officials said they cannot easily be targeted without advanced air power of the kind used by the US on January 19, when B-2 bombers killed more than 80 militants in a strike southwest of Sirte.

For more than a year, Daesh exercised total control over Sirte, building its primary North African base in the coastal city. But it struggled to keep a footing elsewhere in Libya and by December was forced out of Sirte after a six-month campaign led by brigades from the western city of Misrata and backed by US air strikes.

The terrorist group lost many of its fighters in the battle and now has no territory in Libya, but fugitive militants and sleeper cells are seen to pose a threat in a country that has been deeply fractured and largely lawless since the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

The threat is focused south of the coastal strip between Misrata and Tripoli, arcing to the southeast around the town of Bani Walid and into the desert south of Sirte, said Esmail Shukri, head of military intelligence in Misrata.

One group of 60-80 militants is operating around Girza, 170km west of Sirte, another group of about 100 is based around Zalla and Mabrouk oilfield, about 300km southeast of Sirte, and there are reports of a third group present in AlUwaynat, close the Algerian border, he said.

Some fighters were based outside Sirte before last year’s campaign, some fled during the battle and some have arrived from eastern Libya where they have been largely defeated by rival armed factions.

“They work and move around in small groups. They only use two or three vehicles at a time and they move at night to avoid detection,” Mohammad Gnaidy, an intelligence official with forces that conducted the campaign in Sirte, said.

Those forces published pictures in the wake of last month’s US strike showing hideouts dug into the sand, temporary shelters camouflaged with plastic sheeting and branches, stocks of weapons and satellite phones.

“This area is very difficult so it’s hard for our forces to deal with them,” said Shukri, pointing to satellite images of steep rocky banks and tracks in the sand southwest of Sirte.