Obama authorized the new strikes after recommendations from Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, according to Defense Department spokesman Peter Cook.
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Libyan PM Fayez Sarraj, who asked for U.S. military intervention, said strikes over the last 24 hours had caused the terror group “heavy losses”.
The Mediterranean city has been under Daesh control since a year ago, becoming the group’s biggest bastion outside Syria and Iraq.
President Barack Obama approved the strikes last week after Libya’s fragile United Nations-backed unity government asked for help in its fight against the Islamic State, administration officials said. They were the first strikes by the United States on the group in Libya since February.
“The biggest difference is that a specific request” came from Libya’s Government of National Accord, Cook said, and further strikes will involve “careful collaboration” with that government. USA surveillance drones were used to assist the targeting, though Cook did not have an estimate of how many Islamic State fighters were killed.
TOI notes that Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook implied more USA airstrikes would be forthcoming, although details were not provided.
Airstrikes are backing Libyan forces seeking to retake city of Sirte from ISIL. In February, U.S. warplanes hit an Islamic State group training facility near Tripoli, killing an estimated 40 fighters.
“The U.S. amphibious assault ship Wasp, carrying an element of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, is standing by in the vicinity of Libya, sources said”.
Libya slid into chaos after the removal and killing of dictator Col Muammar Gadafy in 2011.
Libya’s pro-government militias – mainly from the western city of Misrata – have been waging an offensive against Islamic State in Sirte since May.
Reuters reports that the militia groups fighting ISIS in Sirte aren’t thrilled with the amount of government support they’ve been getting. The last acknowledged USA airstrikes in Libya were in the western city of Sabratha in February.
ISIS’ Libyan affiliate is believed to have “under 1,000-possibly several hundred” fighters in Sirte, Cook said.
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Western powers have offered to support the GNA in its efforts to tackle Islamic State, stem the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean and revive Libya’s oil production.
