Islamic State militants briefly entered the center of the western Libyan city of Sabratha during overnight clashes with local military brigades before retreating, local authorities said on Wednesday.
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It said President Francois Hollande had authorised “unofficial military action” by both an elite armed forces unit and the covert action service of the DGSE intelligence agency in the conflict-ridden North African state, which has two rival governments and largely ungoverned desert spaces.
The Tripoli interior ministry’s special forces unit, on its Facebook page, said the IS “emir” for Sabratha, Mohamed Saad al-Tajuri, also known as Abu Sleiman, was seized in the city, 70 kilometres (45 miles) west of the capital.
The U.S. carried out airstrikes against the extremist group’s position in the western city of Sabratha last week, killing dozens.
The Tripoli government militarily supports the Shura Council of the Revolutionaries, a diverse coalition of militia groups fighting in part for the loyalist forces in Benghazi and have called the Loyalist offensive “unjustified hostile acts”.
Islamic State “police” train in Sirte, Libya.
Libya’s chaos, five years after the uprising that led to the ouster and killing of longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, has allowed Islamic State to take control of several cities.
“They’re getting stronger because no one is fighting them”, said Misrata forces commander Mahmoud Gazwan at the Wadi Bey checkpoint, a dusty outpost serving as a mobile base for his brigade of fighters. “They had also been training Libyan forces”.
A French air force jet takes off from a site in Jordan to strike at Islamic State group targets in Syria in November 2015.
The United Nations has been trying to bring the country’s rival factions together in such a government.
Le Monde also quoted a French defense official who insisted on anonymity as saying France wanted to avoid “overt military engagement” in Libya at all costs, but also really wanted to intervene there against the growing ISIS affiliate.
“The investigation should establish if details covered by defence secrecy rules were revealed in this article”, said a source close to Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
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Meanwhile, the parliament in Tobruk on Tuesday delayed a vote on a UN-backed unity government after failing to reach a quorum, the third postponement by the body this year.
