Forces allied with Libya’s unity government said on Saturday they had recaptured the port in the militant bastion of Sirte, advancing rapidly against Daesh fighters encircled inside the city.
Apart from the port, the Libyan forces also retook residential areas in eastern Sirte, which for the past year has been the main Daesh base in the North African country, a spokesman for the forces, Rida Issa, said.
The militants are now surrounded in a densely populated area of around 5 sq km inside Sirte where they are laying booby traps, he said.
Most of the city’s residents have fled but some 30,000 remain, Issa said.
“The battle wasn’t as difficult as we thought it would be,” one government official said. “Maybe we exaggerated their numbers.”
The UN envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, said on Saturday on Twitter that he was “impressed” by the “rapid progress” of pro-GNA (Government of National Accord) forces.
A total of 137 pro-GNA forces have been killed and 500 wounded since the operation began on May 12, according to a medical official in the western city of Misrata.
A correspondent at the scene reported heavy street fighting on Friday about 2km from the Ouagadougou centre.
GNA forces used tanks, rocket launchers and artillery, the correspondent said, while the militants responded with machineguns, mortar rounds and sniper fire.
“We are fighting between houses, on the streets, and we won’t back down before we eliminate them,” said one GNA combatant, who declined to be named. The operations command, on its Facebook page, said militant positions had been targeted by 150 air strikes since mid-May.
Emily Estelle, a North Africa and Middle East specialist with the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, said an estimated 2,000 fighters, primarily well-equipped Misrata militiamen, were engaged in the Sirte operation.
According to Estelle, “American and British advisers on the ground are likely helping” the Misratans.
