ISIS in Action

Misratan-led al-Bunyan al-Marsus (BM) forces reportedly discovered the remains of 90 bodies 45 km south west of Sirte, apparently killed by the US airstrikes launched against ISIS cells on 19 January as a parting move by the Obama administration. The BM fighters reportedly captured two ‘terrorist’ suspects and killed four during the operation. Underground stores and camouflaged hideouts were also discovered.
Sirte is increasingly witnessing a breakdown of security due to widespread looting, burglary and theft of power cables in the city. On 26 January, tribal elders in Sirte accused BM forces (who led the operation against ISIS in the city) of looting the town and seizing local properties. They claim some BM units prevented Sirte residents from returning home by blocking the town’s entrance with sand barriers. The tribal elders also accused BM militias of plundering power cables from the 700 Residence areas to be shipped abroad via Misrata port.
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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.
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ISIS in Action

On 16 January, Brg. Mohammed al-Ghosri, who was last week promoted by the GNA Minister of Defence (MoD) from Head of the BM Operations Room to MoD spokesperson, announced that more than 2,500 bodies of ISIS fighters had been collected from Sirte. He added that hundreds of other bodies may still be under the rubble. Ghosri said that no ISIS members escaped from Sirte during the 8 month siege of the city by BM forces. He concluded that those ISIS fighters who are currently regrouping south of Sirte and in southern Libya were already located out of the BM control perimeter when the Sirte operation began. Ghosri also said he thinks that ISIS proliferation in southern Libya is a real threat, and that a major war in southern Libya is possible if the political situation in Libya remains in limbo.
On 17 January, LNA forces in Nawfaliyah, a town west of Sirte, captured Emhemmed Emrajaa al-Hamali, a senior Libyan ISIS commander from Sirte. Al-Hamali was taken by the LNA, along with his son, to Grenada prison in Benghazi. Al-Hamali was reportedly responsible for attacking Sirte’s Ibn Sina hospital and the Man Made River station. He had been appointed in 2012 to head Sirte’s Supreme Security Committee branch, which became a cover for Ansar al-Sharia in the city.
On 17 January, a convoy of 4 ISIS vehicles reportedly set up a checkpoint along the Man Made River network route at Wadi Bey. A fuel tanker was obstructed, hijacked and transported to an unknown location. The same day, an unexploded IED was found by the bomb disposal unit in Sirte’s first residential area. They successfully defused the device. A suicide belt was also found in one of the farms in al-Gharbiyat area and safely detonated.

— 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.