Sirte, Libya: Forces loyal to Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) said on Saturday they have launched a new attack on diehards of the Daesh group in the coastal city of Sirte.

Backed by weeks of US air strikes, the pro-GNA forces have recaptured nearly all of what had been the militants’ main stronghold in North Africa.

“We are attacking the last Daesh positions in district three,” a GNA fighter told AFP. The GNA forces media centre confirmed on Facebook that the attack had begun.

“Our forces are advancing inside the areas where Daesh is, in district three, and so far have taken control of” two banks and a hotel, the media centre said.

It also said they had thwarted an attempted suicide bombing.

One pro-government fighter had been killed, the Misrata hospital’s Facebook page said.

An AFP journalist saw ambulances leaving Sirte — hometown of dead dictator Muammar Gaddafi — for Misrata to the west.

The forces loyal to the UN-backed GNA had said last weekend they were preparing to “liberate” the entire city after seizing several Daesh positions, including its headquarters.

On Wednesday, GNA head Fayez Al Sarraj visited Sirte for the first time since loyalist forces launched their offensive more than three months ago to drive the militants from the city.

Al Sarraj and some of his ministers toured former front lines as well as the Ouagadougou conference centre which Daesh had used as its base.

“We will continue to chase, with the help of God, the Daesh remnants and strike them wherever they may be in our country,” Sarraj said this week.

The capture of the city by Daesh last year sparked fears that the militants would use it as a springboard for attacks on Europe.

The Sunni extremists took advantage of the chaos in oil-rich Libya after the 2011 uprising to seize Sirte in June 2015, hoisting their black flag above the city.

The offensive on the ground has been backed by US air power.

On Friday, the United States Africa Command said that since the US campaign began on August 1, US drones, helicopters and bombers had carried out a total of 108 air strikes against the militants in Sirte.

It said that on August 31, targets including five “enemy fighting positions” and a vehicle bomb were hit.

Fewer than 200 Daesh militants remain in Sirte, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Thursday, and they are essentially surrounded by GNA forces and the sea.

The fall of Sirte, 450 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli, would represent a significant setback to Daesh, which has also faced a series of setbacks in Syria and Iraq.