- Clashes between the LNA and GNA forces continue in Ain Zara and Swani without any notable changes on the frontline;
- Artillery duells between the sides cause death and injury of civilians in the southern Tripoli;
- The LNA seized a battle tank of GNA forces near the All Zahraa bridge area.
Click to see the full-size image
Has the Daesh presence always been there or have they just magically reappeared out of no-where?!!!
The US/Israeli/Saudi Coalition of Evil usually exploits Wahhabism for a few years first to radicalize disenfranchised Sunni in ‘enemy’ countries, especially in strategic oil or pipeline/port/border areas. If that goes OK, then random radical jihadi groups or al Qaeda take over for a year or two from the weak, coalition-decimated government. ISIS then spontaneously springs up “magically reappeared out of no-where” in some adjacent area and spreads into the hihadi-held oil or pipeline/port/border areas and takes control. That provides sufficient justification for the Coalition of Evil to invade, ‘liberate’ the resources and steal them.
ISIS had a presence in Libya ever since we assassinated Ghadaffi, they were just never that big of a factor until maybe 2014 -2015. They had completely taken over Sirte by then and controlled areas around it. Their expansion ended the last half of 2016 when they were attempting to defend their Sirte stronghold from GNA forces with air support from USAFRICOM/Coalition of Evil. It was kind of like al Baghuz: supposedly defended by a few hundred die-hard ISIS (most of which seem to have managed to escape). We Fallujah’d the place – again. It was previously destroyed in 2012 and genocided by FUKUS and headchoppers for the crime of being Ghadaffi’s home town.
The Israeli-firster, neocon chickenhawk mouthpiece The Atlantic Council tries to lay out the timeline (with their own spin, of course), but the three maps in this piece show where the above two pockets originated prior to the battle of Sirte: https://publications.atlanticcouncil.org/the-origins-and-evolution-of-isis-in-libya/
Today, the two ISIS pockets are not areas of control, but areas of presence – similar to the well-disbursed pockets of ISIS hiding out in remote areas of the Homs-Deir EzZor desert/mountains. For now, it’s not worth the massive amount of forces/effort it would take to find and eliminate them, and most would just sneak off to some other area. And it’s not like there’s big ISIS camps of hundreds of head-choppers hanging out waiting to be discovered. It’s groups of a few raggedy head-choppers and their families that look little different than any of the other destitute refugees trying to survive out there for whatever reason.
Excellent summary Pave Way IV. One might also consider the US/UK support of ISIS and Qaeda in Niger and its oil fields, . would guess they move them up and down the desert as ‘needed’.
Thanks for the explanation! So do you think they will ‘expand’ over time?
Yes, I’d only add that western special forces sometimes masquerade as Daesh, so it’s really hard to tell who you would be facing.