On 26 July, the LNA announced the arrest of an alleged member of the Islamic State’s (IS) religious police, Atiya Abdul Hamid Shalawi, in the Shiha neighbourhood of Derna. Shalawi was arrested in an ambush at dawn as he was trying to enter the city.
On 29 July, the 24th report of the UN’s ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida/Taliban Monitoring Team was published. The reported stated that IS activity in southern Libya had “gained momentum as a consequence of the preoccupation of the Libyan National Army with the battle around Tripoli.” Despite being removed from Libya’s coastal areas, IS fighters continue to be “a significant threat in the subcostal region, from south of the oil fields in the east to the boarders with Algeria in the west.” The reported also noted that the groups numbers had dropped to low hundreds and that “the only non-Libyan in the top leadership of IS is Libya is Iraqi national Abu Moaz al-Tkriti (not listed), while the rest of the leadership are Libyan nationals.”
On 4 July, security forces in Sirte allegedly arrested a suspected IS member. The individual was allegedly planning to organise and undertake a terror attack.
On 24 July, the Misratan Joint Security Force undertook a dawn raid against alleged al-Qaeda leaders in an undisclosed suburb of Tripoli. The GNA’s interior ministry stated that those arrested were connected to attacks launched in Tripoli. The primary target for the raid was an Algerian national dubbed “al-Chaoui” along with several other Libyans. The names and the total number of those arrested have not been officially disclosed. Weapons and documents for producing explosives were reportedly discovered.
A weekly update of ISIS’s actions, the Western response, and developments pertaining to Libya’s other militias are available by subscribing here. To read about Western countries’ responses to ISIS in Libya this week, click here. To read their explanation of the developments within the anti-ISIS Coalition of Libyan militias, click here.
