The US military launched the first of what is expected to be a sustained series of air strikes in Libya targeting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s stronghold of Sirte. The first US strike occurred in November. It remains to be seen if the United States focus is exclusively on ensuring ISIS loses the city, or if they will commit militarily to resist it falling to another faction.
Advertisement
Militants seized Sirte in early 2015 and have sought to transform it into an annex of its so-called caliphate.
The raids were authorized by President Barack Obama, after being recommended by US Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
Cook said the US would vet its specific targets as part of a “collaborative process” with the Libyan government. The Wasp is not accompanied, sources said, by the other two ships of its amphibious ready group.
CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan reports that, until four to five months ago, the US had been unwilling to strike in Libya before a government was in place. They have been routinely moving in and out of the country, meeting with Libyan groups.
As a result, Western officials now believe the number of ISIS militants in Libya – previously estimated at 6,000 – is rapidly declining due to high death rates and desertions.
Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Islamic State fighters in Libya are facing the “distinct possibility” of defeat in their last stronghold.
Local forces in Libya fighting Islamic State are diffuse and fragmented, with no single center of command, said Frederic Wehrey, a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington who recently spent three days with fighters in Sirte.
The Obama administration has been negotiating for weeks with the Libyan government on how to use US airstrikes to support the limited capability of Libyan warplanes to hit targets in Sirte.
The Islamic State has established a presence in war-torn Libya and in Afghanistan.
The last acknowledged USA air strikes in Libya were on an Islamic State training camp in the western city of Sabratha in February.
Advertisement
Libya has become increasingly divided since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with competing governments and rival militias seeking to gain territory and influence. The power and security vacuum left the country a breeding ground for militias and militants, including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida affiliates.
