Tripoli // Pinned down in the centre of the coastal city of Sirte, ISIL extremists on Thursday stepped up suicide bomb attacks on forces of Libya’s unity government killing 10 people and wounding seven.
The focus of ISIL counter-attacks has been aimed at retaking Sirte’s port and western sectors of the city, the hometown of late dictator Muammar Qaddafi, military sources said.
Extremist groups took root in Libya in late 2014, taking advantage of the chaos and power struggles that followed the Nato-backed uprising which toppled and killed Qaddafi in 2011.
“A suicide attack using a booby-trapped car targeted the Abu Grein checkpoint,” the forces of the UN-backed Government of National Accord said.
ISIL claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings against pro-GNA forces on Thursday, without mentioning Abu Grein.
In messages distributed online, it said a Tunisian and an Egyptian had detonated car bombs targeting “apostate” forces west of Sirte, US-based monitor Site Intelligence said.
It was unclear if these were the same attacks the GNA forces announced on Thursday.
Forces allied to the GNA captured the town of Abu Grein on May 17 as they advanced on Sirte, the extremists’ stronghold in Libya, 130 kilometres to the east.
Thirty-two people were killed and 50 wounded in a car-bomb attack in Abu Grein the next day targeting the forces allied with the GNA.
Ten members of the pro-GNA forces were killed and seven wounded in Thursday’s bomb attack in Abu Grein, said sources at the central hospital in Misurata, from where they launched an offensive against ISIL.
The military command of the anti-ISIL operation said two other car-bombings inside Sirte itself were foiled on Thursday.
“Our forces managed to destroy two car bombs before they reached their targets,” it said.
“The two cars had targeted positions of our forces on two fronts.”
The extremists have mounted eight suicide car bombings against pro-GNA forces since Sunday, as they intensify efforts to regain lost ground in the Mediterranean city.
Pro-GNA forces backed by air strikes entered the city last week, aiming to drive the extremist group out of its bastion on Europe’s doorstep.
But the advance has been stalled since Sunday on the outskirts of Sirte’s residential areas where the extremists are holed up.
* Agence France-Presse
