The move, announced by civilian sources, took place as other IS forces head west, showing that the terrorist group plans to seize the entire region.
Sirte (AsiaNews) – Civilian sources told AsiaNews that the Kheshum El Kheyl crossing, south of Sirte, fell into the hands of the Islamic State (IS) group.
Libyan sources report that erday, a great movement of vehicles loaded with IS fighters and heavy weapons travelled south of Sirte."
Some IS units were deployed along the southern road that connects the village of Abu Hadi with the town of Waddan.
IS troops were also seen moving towards the Cancialo pass*, close to Al Jufrah, not far from Waddan, which indicates that IS might be planning to seize the entire region (central and western Sirte), as far as Bin Jawad in the east and Al Jufrah in the south.
IS officially began to send its mercenaries to Libya in the fall of 2014, boosting its presence by opening local training and recruitment centres, to join its foreign mercenaries, mostly Tunisians, as well as members of Ansar El Sharia Libyan branch, once close to Al Qaeda,
IS was already present in Derna in eastern Libya as the best organised anti-Gaddafi Islamist group, as well as Benghazi, where it claimed responsibility for the attack on the local US consulate in 2012, in which US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other people were killed.
In early 2015, the terrorists from the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate attacked a luxury hotel in Tripoli as well as oil installations.
In February of last year, they released a video showing the beheading of Egyptian and Ethiopian Copts on a beach.
Since then, they have consolidated their hold over the Sirte area, taking advantage of the fact that factions fighting for power in post-Gaddafi Libya had abandoned it. (PB)
* Deformation of the Italian word ‘cancello’, i.e. gate.