‘For IS losing Sirte won’t mean losing Libya’ – Victory will be a boost for GNA

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TRIPOLI, Aug 17, (AFP): Libyan pro-government forces have cornered Islamic State group fighters in a few pockets of Sirte, but defeat there will be far from the end of IS in Libya, analysts say. While ousting the jihadists from the coastal city that was once their North African stronghold would be a symbolic boost for Libya’s fragile unity government, it could also set the stage for further conflict. “DAESH has lost Sirte, but it has not lost Libya,” said Abdelbari Atwan, a journalist and expert on jihadist groups, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The loss of its main stronghold could prompt the group to launch more scattered attacks across the country, which remains an important recruitment base for IS. It took over Sirte and a stretch of Libyan coastline in June 2015. With that, IS gained a foothold — and a major port — just 300 kilometres (180 miles) from the European coast. Forces commanded by Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) launched an offensive on May 12 to oust the jihadists.

GNA forces entered Sirte on June 9 and began a street-by-street battle against jihadist snipers, also facing car bombs and suicide attacks. Backed by US air strikes, they took over an IS command centre on Aug 11. Defeat for IS in Sirte would come on top of significant losses the jihadist group has suffered in Iraq and Syria. It would probably prompt the group to change tactics, said Ethan Chorin, an American former diplomat in Libya and head of Perim Associates, a consultancy.

Libya will “very likely see a shift in IS strategy to a more diffuse and intensifi ed campaign of terror and intimidation,” he told AFP. “IS and like-minded Islamist fi ghters have consistently shown an ability to ‘melt away’ at will,” Chorin said. It is hard to estimate the number of IS fighters still alive in Sirte. The Pentagon estimates that they number in the hundreds. According to French and American sources, a further 5,000-7,000 are present across Libya. While the loss of Sirte would deprive them of a strategically valuable port, they could move to set up a base in the lawless deserts of southern Libya.

“It is a porous region, as the central state has no presence there and no single militia dominates,” said Atwan. He noted that several major tribes which supported the toppled regime of dead dictator Muammar Gaddafi are marginalised today, spurring some of their young men to join IS. “Those people found a refuge in the Islamic State,” he said. A victory in Sirte would still be a boost for the GNA, Libya’s internationally recognised government, particularly as it competes for legitimacy against a rival administration in the country’s east. Chorin warned that the GNA and its allied militias may embark on a showdown with the eastern-based Libyan National Army over Libya’s oilfields in the Sirte Basin. “It is very possible we are seeing the start of an even larger conflict,” he said.

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