Libya pro-government forces seize ISIS headquarters in Sirte

Pro-government forces said they captured the Islamic State group’s headquarters in their main Libyan stronghold of Sirte on Wednesday, scoring a major victory in a push to oust the jihadists from the city.
ISIS fighters remained in several parts of the city, officials said, but seizing control of their headquarters has been the key goal of the forces loyal to Libya’s Government of National Accord.
The taking of the headquarters followed rapid gains by pro-government forces through the city on Wednesday and after the United States last week launched airstrikes on ISIS positions in Sirte at the GNA’s request.
The city’s fall to ISIS in June last year raised deep concerns in the West, with fears the jihadists were gaining an important foothold just across the Mediterranean from Europe.
“The Ouagadougou centre is in our hands,” the operations centre for pro-GNA forces said, referring to the Sirte conference centre where ISIS had set up base.
Reda Issa, a spokesperson for the forces, said ISIS jihadists remained in three residential areas of the city and in a villa complex near the seafront.
“The announcement of the liberation [of Sirte] will only be made once the entire city is liberated,” he told AFP.
The capture of the headquarters came after a lightning advance on Wednesday that saw pro-GNA forces seize the University of Sirte campus just south of the conference centre and the Ibn Sina Hospital to the north.