Libyan fighters welcome US air strikes against Isis, but question why they did not come sooner

'Morale is much higher, our men were celebrating last night'

A fighter of Libyan forces allied with the UN-backed government fires a shell with Soviet made T-55 tank at Isis fighters in Sirte (Goran Tomasevi/Reuters)

A day after the United States began a formal campaign of air strikes against an Isis stronghold in Libya, anti-Isis fighters welcomed Washington's involvement but remained wary of advancing for fear of mines and snipers.

The initial US strikes on Monday targeted a tank and two vehicles in Sirte, where the jihadists are encircled in the heart of what has become an important base for the group beyond its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

Fighters from a range of anti-Isis brigades are dug in behind sand banks and concrete walls in the coastal city after suffering high casualties in months of street-by-street fighting.

“If the United States is serious about these air strikes we are very pleased, and it will help us on the ground,” said Husam Bakoush, a fighter with the Marsa brigade.

The battle highlights the challenges of driving the Isis from Libya, where it has struggled to win local support but exploited the chaos that followed the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.

The country is still deeply divided and a UN-backed government had hesitated to call for US support until now for fear of a backlash.

For the fighters on the ground, this was a source of frustration. “Most of my friends are happy, but they asked why it did not happen sooner,” Mr Bakoush said.

Abdalla Ali Ibrahim Ismail, another fighter with Marsa brigade, said the strikes could be a game-changer.

“I think the US strikes will help the ground troops a lot ... I hope that when we start to push again against Islamic State [Isis] positions the US planes will give us cover.

“Morale is much higher, our men were celebrating last night.”

The presence of Isis in Sirte has been reduced to a few hundred fighters who once controlled what was Gaddafi's hometown.

The air strikes in Libya are “open ended”, but each one will be coordinated with the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), US officials said.

“We requested support from the United States so that the operation could move quickly and we would not lose more fighters,” said Mokhtar Fakron, an air force spokesman in nearby Misrata, from where the Sirte campaign is being run.

US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday it is in the US national security interest to support the fight against Isis in Libya.

The air strikes were undertaken to make sure that Libyan forces were able to finish the job of fighting the radical militant group and to increase stability there, Mr Obama said.

The absence of stability in Iraq and Syria “has helped to fuel some of the challenges that we've seen in terms of the migration crisis in Europe,” Mr Obama said.

US warplanes have conducted strikes on seven targets in and around the Libyan coastal city of Sirte over the past two days, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said at a news briefing on Tuesday. The targets were said to include two tanks, an Isise fighting position, construction vehicles, military vehicles, a rocket launcher and an excavator.

Also on Tuesday, Italy said it would consider allowing the United States to use the Sigonella air base in Sicily for strikes against Isis in Libya if asked. The two Nato allies had agreed in February that Italy would only allow the US to conduct “defensive” strikes from there.

When asked on RAI state television whether the US would be allowed to use the air base during the air campaign, foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni said: “Should there be requests, we will consider them.”

The battle for Sirte is now focussed around the Ouagadougou convention centre, a white structure where Islamic State hung its black banner, and in the streets around a hospital and the university.

Isis took over Sirte a year ago, but forces from the western city of Misrata allied to the UN-backed government began a campaign to liberate it in May.

Small teams of Western special forces have been providing intelligence and logistical support in Libya for months, and the United States has previously conducted isolated strikes against militants.

But Western powers said they would take more sustained action only at the invitation of the GNA, which arrived in Tripoli in March. The new government had held back, struggling to assert its authority over a fractured country and sensitive to criticism that it had been imposed from the outside.

Since Isis embedded itself in Sirte, almost all the city's 80,000 residents have fled. Downtown residential neighbourhoods are now a battleground, with handwritten signs warning of snipers at junctions and blankets strung across roads to give brigade fighters cover.

The fighters talk of finding sophisticated booby traps, and explosives hidden among food or furniture, in buildings abandoned by Islamic State. They say they have been left alone to fight a dirty war against an enemy that represents a trans-national threat.

“Maybe some of the men would not have come to fight if they'd known it would be like this,” said Ahmed Grayma, a commander positioned near Sirte's port on Saturday who said his brigade lacked armoured vehicles, protective clothing and mine detectors.

“We feel tricked because they said the international community was behind us but our colleagues are dying and we don't know when it will end.”

Reuters