Click here for the first part in this video series.
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ISIS in Action
On 25 November, four members of a single family were beheaded in their house in Khoms, with graffiti left behind claiming ISIS was responsible. The motive and perpetrators of the attack are unknown, but locals say that the family belongs to a branch of Salafism whose members have had an active role fighting against ISIS in Sirte. This incident follows an attack last month on another leading Salafist in Khoms, whose wife died in the attack. These attacks could point to increased tensions between Salafists (Madkhalis) and ISIS or al-Qaeda sympathisers in the region.
In Sirte, the GNA-affiliated al-Bunyan al-Marsus (BM) fighters are slowly blasting their way through the remaining buildings in Sirte’s al-Jiza al-Bahriya district. This is the last ISIS enclave in the city and now reportedly consists of only a few dozen buildings. However, BM forces who are advancing house-by-house continue to suffer casualties and are impeded by booby traps and mines. ISIS has published reports claiming it has killed large numbers of BM forces but this is likely to be propaganda to promote a perception of its resistance on the ground.
US AFRICOM reported that on 22 November it conducted nine airstrikes against ISIS targets in Sirte. These latest strikes brings the total Operation Odyssey Lightning airstrikes to 420.
On 26 November, the LNA defeated an ISIS assault against its forces in Abu Sneeb, an area in southern Benghazi. ISIS published photographs of its fighters in these clashes.
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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.
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.
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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Fajr al ‘Anzī: “The Sophistical Thought of al-Qā’idah”
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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: Aḥlām al-Naṣr: “State of the Methodology, Not a State of Individuals”
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For prior parts see: #55, #54, #53, #52, #51, #50, #49, #48, #47, #46, #45, #44, #43, #42, #41, #40, #39, #38, #37, #36, #35, #34, #33, #32, #31, #30, #29, #28, #27, #26, #25, #24, #23, #22, #21, #20, #19, #18, #17, #16, #15, #14, #13, #12, #11, #10 and #1.
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Click the following link for a safe PDF copy: The Islamic State — “al-Nabā’ Newsletter #56”
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On 16 November and 19 November, the Misratan-led al-Bunyan al-Marsus (BM) forces aligned with the GNA suffered losses as ISIS fighters managed to launch commando missions against the forces. With more than 650 BM fighters killed and 3,000 injured since the battle for Sirte began, the BM operations room has largely ceased publishing casualty reports. The death toll for the ISIS fighters is not known. The remaining ISIS fighters in Sirte are held up in al-Jiza al-Bahriya, the final area ISIS enclave, and on 21 November BM forces said that they had managed to dislodge ISIS fighters from a fortified school in the area which the militants had fiercely defended.
On 16 November, ISIS published images which it claims are of an ISIS checkpoint in an open road area south west of Sirte. This indicates that ISIS may have shifted its strategy, dispersing southwards from the siege in Sirte to find refuge in the desert and regroup in order to launch counterattacks. There have long been fears that many ISIS fighters have slipped out of Sirte, meaning that reclaiming Sirte could be a hollow victory. This tactic follows similar ISIS strategies in Syria and Iraq.
In an interview with American news outlet Stars and Stripes last week, AFRICOM’s Gen. Thomas Waldhauser discussed AFRICOM’s ongoing efforts to monitor the movements of ISIS fighters outside Sirte. He said “We need to leverage that success (in Sirte) by watching where these individuals go, keeping track of where they are, because what we don’t want them to do is re-emerge, come back, attack Tripoli, attack the forces who are in Sirte from behind.” He added, “We have to continue to develop those targets and have certainty of who we are seeing and what the activities are. We just need to have that level of certainty if we decide to strike outside the limits of Sirte.”
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.
