No U.S. ground forces are expected to be deployed.
Advertisement
At a news conference Monday, Cook said the air campaign against targets in Sirte “does not have an end point at this particular moment in time”, and that President Obama had authorized additional airstrikes “in close coordination with the GNA”.
The United States has launched a campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State in Libya, its first military intervention against the group in its stronghold of Sirte.
Abdalla Ali Ibrahim Ismail, another fighter with Marsa brigade, said the strikes could be a game-changer.
There are also small numbers of US and global special operations forces already on the ground in Libya, but Cook said today that none of them is involved in the fighting in Sirte. These airstrikes came as a request from the GNA, or Libyan Government of National Accord.
He also noted that the strikes will not go beyond Sirte and its surroundings. “The Wasp is not accompanied, sources said, by the other two ships of its amphibious ready group”, the report continues. USA military officials now peg the number of ISIS fighters in the city at around 2,000 following months of Libyan military attacks.
US Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey said last week he expected the eventual defeat of ISIS could lead to an increase in attacks in the US and Europe by drawing militants out of Syria.
Without mentioning any future USA military plans in Libya, Dunford said that “whatever actions we conduct”, aside from those meant to eliminate an Islamic State threat to the USA homeland, “are going to be in conjunction with” the U.N.-backed government.
Indeed, emails obtained by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which were previously reported by People’s Pundit Daily, clearly show Clinton’s inner circle at the State Department were crafting the Libyan story in the political context to use to boost Mrs. Clinton’s foreign policy credentials.
The Islamic State has established a presence in war-torn Libya and in Afghanistan. The last acknowledged USA airstrikes in Libya were in the western city of Sabratha in February. Washington took part in air strikes in 2011 to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya which helped topple Gaddafi. The power and security vacuum left the country a breeding ground for militias and for militants including the Islamic State and al-Qaida affiliates.
The GNA was the result of a UN-brokered power-sharing agreement struck in December, but it has yet to be endorsed by Libya’s elected parliament based in the country’s far east.
Advertisement
Since May, Libya’s UN-backed government have been striking the IS targets in Sirte, about 450 kilometers east of the capital city Tripoli.
