(Author: Libyan Gazette Editorial Staff)
THe Government of National Accord (GNA) forces have discovered a makeshift factory where the, so called, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), manufactured grenades, car bombs and other types of explosives.
The makeshift factories were found in the a neighbourhood called the Arches.
“This was like a headquarters for Daesh [ISIS] weaponry and they made a lot of devices and booby-traps here, out of scrap metal,” said a GNA loyal fighter.
“We also found a lot of other items, including pieces of scrap metal, that Daesh [ISIS] used in their car bombs, to create shrapnel to make the explosion more lethal and cause the maximum damage and injuries,” he said.
ISIS’s attack strategies in Sirte have usually involved suicide bombers, mines, and improvised explosive devices resulting in over 200 deaths for the GNA forces and the number of GNA fighters injured reaching over 1000.
“We never saw these kind of things when we were fighting in 2011,” said Abdul Latif Riad, a GNA fighter recovering in a hospital in Misrata for injuries he sustained from an explosion while fighting against ISIS.
“We found that Daesh has specialist people who know how to prepare mines and IEDs by hand. Either these people come from outside Libya, or they have been trained how to make these devices because, in 2011, we were only dealing with face-to face fighting, not these kind of IEDs,” explained Riad.
ISIS has been fleeing their makeshift warehouses in a rush, leaving many of their belongs behind, as GNA forces make their way into Sirte.