In a major step toward ousting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from the jihadist group’s main Libyan stronghold of Sirte, pro-government forces said they had captured ISIS’ headquarters in the city.
Though ISIS fighters remained in several other parts of the city, officials said, but seizing control of their headquarters – the Ougadougou Centre, a conference centre where ISIS had set up base – has been the key goal of the forces loyal to Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA).
The taking of the headquarters followed rapid gains by pro-government forces through the city, also aided by the United States’ air strikes on ISIS positions in Sirte launched last week, at the GNA’s request.
The city’s fall to ISIS in June last year raised deep concerns in the West, with fears that the jihadists were gaining an important foothold just across the Mediterranean from Europe.
Reda Issa, a spokesman for the pro-government forces, said ISIS jihadists now remain in three residential areas of the city and in a villa complex near the seafront.
Issa said the announcement of Sirte’s liberation will only be made once the entire city is free of all ISIS remnants.
The capture of the headquarters came after a lightning advance that saw pro-GNA forces seize the University of Sirte campus just south of the conference centre and the Ibn Sina Hospital to the north.
Pro-GNA forces entered Sirte – 450 kilometres east of Tripoli – in June, after ISIS seized the city amid the chaos that followed the 2011 ouster of President Muammar Gaddafi.
Their advance slowed as the jihadists hit back with sniper fire, suicide attacks and car bombings but on Sunday pro-government forces said the “countdown” had begun for the final assault on ISIS’ holdout positions in the city.
(With inputs from PTI)
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