By Libya Herald reporters.
Benghazi and Tripoli, 25 July 2016:
Misratan-led Bunyan Marsous forces today overran the Sirte Clinic and the security HQ as the hard street-fighting continued. But in what may be a sign of the pressure for fresh fighters, the Misratan military council has withdrawn the greater part of its military presence in southern Libya.
The Third Force, which was sent to Sebha in April 2014 left its headquarters in the town’s Qadaffi-era People’s Hall over the weekend. It is understood that the majority of the militiamen stationed at the airbase and barracks outside the town also pulled out.
The BM operations room has not yet released the latest casualty figures but a journalist close to part the fighting said that in the course of today only two fighters had been seen being evacuated. The seizure of the white National Security Directorate complex and the Sirte clinic, further shrinks the territory controlled by IS.
The clinic is directly to the east of the Hay Dolar residential district finally overrun in Thursday’s bloody fighting. It was discovered today that the terrorists had removed some of the clinic’s surgical and radiography equipment, it was assumed to their main redoubt in the Ouagadougou Centre. Besides this, IS still controls the Ibn Sina hospital and most of Sirte university campus.
It is understood that considerable attention is being given to the IS bomb-making plant overrun on Saturday. Unlike the previous two captured stores of shells, detonators and timers, this facility was notable for the range of measuring, testing and machining equipment it contained. BM fighters discovered detailed bomb-making instructions and other technical literature, along with atomic scales and highly sensitive voltmeters. The property is now being guarded. The speculation is that specialists are examining the contents, not only to better understand the bomb-makers’ techniques but also perhaps to seek to actually identify them from finger prints and DNA samples.
Understanding the construction of IEDs is of huge value to BM de-miners. It is said that in the last week they have had to tackle the trade-mark of retreating IS terrorists, in the shape of more than a hundred mines and booby traps. Frontline fighters with minimal military experience have quickly learned extreme caution when entering abandoned properties or moving over ground that may have been recently disturbed. The hard-worked bomb disposal teams have a list of suspect devices that they have yet to find time to check.
