While internal turmoil continues to threaten Libya’s social fabric and stability, the U.S. stays the course and zeroes in on the eradication of ISIS in a series of deadly airstrikes that devastate the already weakened group. Raids launched in recent weeks culled ISIS Libyan desert camps targeting their key fighters and successfully eradicating 43 operational terrorists, thereby significantly dwindling their presence in Libya and rendering the group’s regrouping and regeneration an impossibility.
The strikes come amidst fears that ISIS could exploit the ongoing Libyan struggle to carry out attacks in a desperate attempt to regain the status it held when it had 5,000 fighters in the country before the massive AFRICOM airstrike campaign in 2015 left all but about 200 ISIS fighters dead.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity following the recent series of strikes on ISIS targets in Libya, a senior U.S. defense official declared, “We assess that was a pretty significant degradation of their capabilities, and they struggle to reconstitute because of the nature of the operatives who were killed in this strike and the fact that they have already been struggling with manpower.” The U.S. official declared that there are now only about 100 ISIS fighters believed to be operating in Libya. Though weakened, military officials maintain that ISIS still poses a tremendous threat on Libya and the region as it strives to create a potential haven for its militants amidst the ongoing civil war afflicting the country.
