Two guards were killed and 16 others wounded on Tuesday, Ali al-Hasy, a spokesman for the force, said.
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The UK’s Guardian newspaper said Monday’s assault involved a suicide vehicle bomb attack at the checkpoint to Sidra town.
Islamic State militants have taken advantage of a security vacuum to tighten their grip on Sirte, and have been threatening to advance east along the coast. Therefore, the attacks have raised some concerns that the Islamist group plans to sabotage the financial viability of this pact between the two rival militia hoping to control Libya by tearing down the country’s main source of revenue generation. Isis also shelled a tank in the nearby Ras Lanuf oil terminal during a clash with guards at the facility.
“We are helpless and not being able to do anything against this deliberate destruction to the oil installations”, Libya’s National Oil Corporation said in a statement on its website Tuesday.
Fires caused by clashes between Islamic State militants and guards near Libya’s biggest oil ports have spread to four oil storage tanks that were still burning on Wednesday, a guards spokesman said.
Mohamed al-Manfi, an oil official in eastern Libya, said each of the oil tanks was estimated to contain 420,000 to 460,000 barrels of oil.
The Islamic State group, which controls swaths of territory across the Mediterranean Sea in Iraq and Syria, previously tried to attack Es Sider in October.
Oil output has dwindled to less than one quarter of a 2011 high of 1.6 million barrels per day.
The militants are said to have received air cover from forces loyal to the General National Congress (GNC), one of the two rival governments in Libya that is in control of the capital, Tripoli.
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On December 17, under United Nations guidance, envoys from both sides and a number of independent political figures signed a deal for a unity government, but the agreement has yet to be implemented. They are located between the city of Sirte, which is controlled by Islamic State, and the eastern city of Benghazi.
