Tripoli: Pro-government forces in Libya have detained at least eight Daesh group terrorists trying to swim to freedom out of their embattled former coastal bastion of Sirte, the loyalists said.
On Sunday, forces supporting the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) “thwarted the escape of two members of the terrorist Daesh group via the sea”, they said.
“The two Daesh members of Tunisian origin slipped out at dawn towards the sea and tried to escape by swimming,” the LANA news agency reported a military source within the forces as saying.
On Saturday, the GNA forces stopped “six Daesh members who tried to flee at dawn by swimming in the sea”, they said in a statement on their operation’s official Facebook page.
The GNA forces are pressing an almost seven-month-old offensive to oust Daesh from the Mediterranean city, some 450 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli.
They began the operation to retake Sirte on May 12, quickly seizing large areas of the city, but have since faced dogged resistance from Daesh fighters cornered in their last holdouts by the sea.
For several weeks, loyalists have slowly been advancing house by house in the fiercely defended seaside district of Giza Al Bahriya, but have failed to dislodge the last pockets of Daesh fighters.
GNA fighters have attempted to secure safe passage for civilians out of the neighbourhood, their Facebook page said.
Almost seven months of fighting have left nearly 700 GNA fighters dead and 3,000 wounded. The Daesh death toll is not known.
Libya descended into chaos after the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and Daesh overran Sirte in June 2015.
