Weekly Eye on ISIS in Libya Update – June 27, 2016

ISIS In Action
The GNA’s Misratan-led Bunyan Marsus operations room launched a massive ground assault on 21 June in an attempt to capture the centre of Sirte. However, ISIS snipers and IED’s repeatedly dealt Bunyan Marsus significant losses throughout the week. Most of the fighting occurred in the area known as “700 district” in southeastern sector of central Sirte, and less than a few kilometres from the Ibn Sina hospital and Ouagadougou complex, ISIS’s base of operations. Bunyan Marsus managed to take control of an ISIS bomb factory, and is now laying siege to the city, with regular airstrikes and artillery shelling of key ISIS positions. At this time, Bunyan Marsus commanders estimate only 500-700 ISIS fighters remain in the city, contrary to higher estimates by the CIA and other foreign military sources.
A weekly update of ISIS’s actions, the Western response, and developments pertaining to Libya’s other militias is available by subscribing here.  To read about Western countries’ responses to ISIS in Libya this week, click here. To read the Eye on ISIS in Libya Team’s blog post about the actions of other jihadi actors, click here. And to read their explanation of the developments within the anti-ISIS Coalition of Libyan militias, click here.
To read all four sections of this week’s Eye on ISIS in Libya report, click here. To subscribe to receive this report weekly into your inbox, sign up on the subscribe page.