The recent push to win back Sirte has has been aided by United States airstrikes, which began on August 1 after a request by the GNA for military aid.
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Can US air strikes push ISIL out of Libya?
On Sunday, a military commander said that only District 1 of the city remained under complete IS control.
“Our forces will nominate a leader”, Colonel Mohamed al-Ghasrie said by phone.
Islamic State militants have tried to establish such a base in the city of Sirte.
The jihadis struck back with two suicide auto bomb attacks, but failed to hit their targets, though one of the bombers detonated his explosives close to a group of soldiers and journalists. The advance came a day after troops helped clear out and de-mine previously recaptured areas of the city.
An AFP photographer said the assault on District Two was mounted in a west-to-east direction and led by tanks opening the way for infantry.
“District Two has been liberated”, Reda Issa, a spokesman for the pro-government forces, told the Reuters news agency.
The Pentagon said it carried out “precision” airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Sirte on Monday, in action coordinated with the GNA.
Airstrikes launched by the United States have hit an Islamic State group vehicle and four militant positions in Libya, raising to 48 the number of US airstrikes against the extremist group since Washington launched its anti-IS campaign in Libya on August 1.
Washington earlier this month launched air strikes on ISIS positions in Sirte in support of the operations, after the militants’ seizure of the city sparked fears that it would be used as a springboard for attacks on Europe across the Mediterranean.
At least 300 members of the pro-government coalition have been killed since the fight for Sirte began at the end of May, many of them civilians who took up arms in the absence of a national army. The jihadists have not revealed their losses.
After doing an organized camouflage, the Misrata-led forces liberated the residential area 2 and some other nearby positions before they had set off to the residential area 1, sources from Sirte reported, saying the forces are still careful for the IS snipers on rooftops.
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Sirte’s fall would be a huge setback to Islamic State’s efforts to expand its self-proclaimed caliphate beyond Syria and Iraq, where the jihadis have also suffered losses.
