U.S. Conducts Airstrikes Against ISIS in Libya

[anatta]

The United States conducted a series of airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Surt, Libya, on Monday, the Pentagon said, as part of a new coordinated military campaign against the extremist Sunni terrorist group’s new stronghold in North Africa.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said that Libya’s government of national accord asked for help in its fight against the Islamic State, adding that “additional U.S. strikes will continue to target ISIL” in Surt, using another name for the Islamic State or ISIS.

President Obama approved the strikes last week, an administration official said. Military officials have been working on plans to enter the fray in Libya for months.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in January that the United States planned to take “decisive military action” against the Islamic State in Libya. Since then, United States and British special operations teams have been conducting clandestine reconnaissance missions in Libya to identify militant leaders and map out their networks.

Separate teams of American Special Operations forces have over the years been trying to court allies from among a patchwork of Libyan militias that remain unreliable, unaccountable, poorly managed and divided by region and tribe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us...T.nav=top-news

[anatta]

here we go down another rabbit hole..

The "unity" gov't is far from popular- it's not even functional in Tripoli ( home base) -and not doing the fighting in Sirte -
that's the "Misrata Brigades"

Libyan Factions
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middle...619773132.html
Misrata’s 235 militia brigades are collectively the most powerful single force in Libya, fighting through a six-month siege during the uprising.

They are equipped with heavy weapons, tanks and truck-launched rockets and have the power to be a decisive force in any struggle between Haftar and Islamist forces.

Many Misratan leaders back the Islamists in Congress, and Misratan brigades once formed a key part of the Libya Shield force in Tripoli.

That changed in November when one brigade opened fire on protesters outside its base in Ghargour, Tripoli, killing 42.

Misratan units were then expelled from the capital.
.

The east is still run by Gen'l Hiftar -a former CIA guy who was part of Qaddafi's corp, until the US/NATO started the 2011 war.

Everybody hates ISIS -much like Iraq ( not Syria) -but the problem is advancing the Misrata brigades means long term support of the Islamists - wo are decidedly anti-western

[anatta]

The U.S. military, along with Arab allies, launched the first airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria late Monday,
as the war ordered by President Obama against the militant organization took on an urgent new phase.

A statement early Tuesday from the Department of Defense said 14 airstrikes were carried out against ISIL targets.

"The strikes destroyed or damaged multiple ISIL targets in the vicinity of Ar Raqqah, Dayr az Zawr, Al Hasakah, and Abu Kamal and included ISIL fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles," the Defense Department said.


The attack was carried out using a mixture of warplanes dropping bombs, remotely piloted aircraft and ships firing cruise missiles.

Aircraft from several Arab states took part in the attack. They were: Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Defense Department.

"We wanted to make sure that ISIL knew they have no safe haven, and we certainly achieved that," Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview with a small group of reporters as he flew to Washington after a weeklong trip to Europe.

[NOVA]

The attack was carried out using a mixture of warplanes dropping bombs, remotely piloted aircraft and ships firing cruise missiles.


And of course not a single civilian, child or women was even scratched from the remotely fired missiles and bombs and drones.....

ain't we just wonderful.....King Obama, Mr. Fantastic,.....God himself must envy this fantastic human being.....

[anatta]

The attack was carried out using a mixture of warplanes dropping bombs, remotely piloted aircraft and ships firing cruise missiles.


And of course not a single civilian, child or women was even scratched from the remotely fired missiles and bombs and drones.....

ain't we just wonderful.....King Obama, Mr. Fantastic,.....God himself must envy this fantastic human being.....

the same asshole POTUS along with Clinton that caused this failed terrorist state we are bombing...again!

[anatta]

airstrikes were held in coordination with Libyan militias.

US says "limited"..but that's what mission creepers always say

[Althea]

the same asshole POTUS along with Clinton that caused this failed terrorist state we are bombing...again!

Yep..we sure fucked up a real Utopia

http://content.time.com/time/special...056521,00.html

Benghazi felt the particular brunt of Gaddaffi's neglect, in part because the city has a history of defiance to central rule from the capital, in Tripoli. (Ironically, the uprising of military officers that brought Qaddaffi to power in 1969 began in Benghazi.) Gaddafi leveled the old bazaar, the heart of the Arab city and the center of civic life, and carved out a swath of prime real estate for an arsenal, parade ground and villa-studded pleasure dome for his elite security forces. And what social welfare projects the regime did undertake, such as a medical center with the pompously literal name "One Thousand Two Hundred Bed Hospital" became white elephants. "They've been building it for more than 40 years and it still isn't finished," says Marrakis. "Huge hospitals like this are obsolete now anyway. [But] all he cared about was his own glory."




The neglect of the city's infrastructure became one of the major reasons why Benghazi turned against the government. With the opening of the country since 2003, Libyans began to learn more about the outside world and realized that they were being shortchanged. The example of the rapid development of the Persian Gulf countries, particularly the Emirati city-sate of Dubai — which doesn't even have much oil wealth of its own — into world-class economies, was particularly galling. "How is it that they are in the desert, in harsh conditions, but have performed miracles, while we have a wonderful climate and all these resources and are going nowhere," says Marrakis. "[Meanwhile] the young people get YouTube and see how one of Gaddafi's sons spent a million dollars to have Beyoncé perform at his party."
In the last three years, the regime began realizing that its neglect of the city was reaching a crisis point, and the government brought in a slew of foreign construction companies with Chinese, Malaysian and Filipino workers to build badly planned suburban mega-tenements. "They realized they were running out of time," says Marrakis. But it was too little too late for the dispossessed young people — more than half of Libyans are under the age of 30 — who took to the streets on Feb. 17 and drove Gaddafi's forces out of Benghazi.

[Althea]

Most Libyans suffered under Gaddafi's capricious rule. His support for radical leftist militant groups in Europe and the Middle East sparked international sanctions that lasted until 2006, when Libya formally ended its weapons of mass destruction programs in exchange for international rehabilitation. His economic policies — laid out in his famous Green Book, which purports to chart a third way between Communism and liberal democracy but in fact cloaked an autocracy with a thousand toothless committees — were just as destructive. Gaddafi banned much private enterprise and turned over property from landlords to their tenants. While this benefited Libya's underclass in the short term, it meant that there has been almost no investment in maintaining the country's housing stock. "All of this is collapsing on the inside," says Marrakis, pointing to apartment buildings along Gamal Abdel Nasser street, once among the city's most prestigious addresses, now more reminiscent of Soviet bloc eastern Europe than of the breezy Mediterranean. "There is a severe, chronic housing shortage," he continues. "Young people can't own their own homes, can't get married, can't start their lives."

.........

[Rune]

.........

Gee, that is so different than how anatta portrays pre-war Libya.
I wonder why that is. (sarcasm)

[christiefan915]

The attack was carried out using a mixture of warplanes dropping bombs, remotely piloted aircraft and ships firing cruise missiles.


And of course not a single civilian, child or women was even scratched from the remotely fired missiles and bombs and drones.....

ain't we just wonderful.....King Obama, Mr. Fantastic,.....God himself must envy this fantastic human being.....

You want the US to do something about ISIS but not airstrikes, is that it?

[anatta]

Yep..we sure fucked up a real Utopia

http://content.time.com/time/special...056521,00.html

you again with the same old meme?
"Utopia" or not ( a worthless debate ) ,you have no idea just how terrible Libya is now with 3 governments, ISIS, and
militia rule.

Speaking of Bengazi ;the "peoples revolution" has eaten it's own.

Libyan human rights activist Salwa Bughaighis assassinated
As a civil and woman's rights activist, she would not mince her words - often speaking bluntly about the dangers posed by Islamist groups and the failures since Gaddafi was ousted. As a lawyer, she frequently spoke of the urgent need for the rule of law.

Those who knew her and worked with her have also been reflecting on the wider context of Benghazi's continuous killings that have so far gone unpunished.
One tribute reads: "What now? Does she become just another poster to carry? Another name lost? Another death that we owe a debt to?"
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28031537

You ignore the Powell Doctrine most of all: "you break it you own it". Obama/Clinton/NATO own this failed terrorist state

[anatta]

.........

looks like article is right after the "humanitarian war"..I recall the garbage strike mentioned -again after the war.
Take a look at this quote form your one sided propaganda piece -from the NTC beasts
that desperately wanted you to believe a Free Libya was dawning:

Now Marrakis and many of the other intelligensia who have formed a new provisional government are hoping that Free Libya will turn Benghazi into the tourist mecca that its geography and history could so easily make it. "I've been all over Europe and Asia and haven't seen beaches like we have here; Greek and Roman cities," says Marrakis, who once lived in Seattle and got his doctorate from the University of Washington. "We had a golden opportunity and Gaddafi squandered it. This time we will do it correctly."

Now look at Beganzi today after the "peoples revolution" and 5 years of intense civil war.


Destruction in Benghazi, Libya, last July after fighting between pro-government forces and an alliance of former anti-Qaddafi rebels linked to the extremist group Ansar al-Sharia. Credit Reuters

[anatta]

Sitre, Libya

[Althea]

looks like article is right after the "humanitarian war"..I recall the garbage strike mentioned -again after the war.
Take a look at this quote form your one sided propaganda piece -from the NTC beasts
that desperately wanted you to believe a Free Libya was dawning:



Now look at Beganzi today after the "peoples revolution" and 5 years of intense civil war.


Destruction in Benghazi, Libya, last July after fighting between pro-government forces and an alliance of former anti-Qaddafi rebels linked to the extremist group Ansar al-Sharia. Credit Reuters

Still recycling the propaganda links BAC gave you?

Yes..the article was just after the UN strikes. The point that you ignored, as BAC always did, was that Libya was in a shambles, and the uprising was well under way before the world got involved. Sure...Arab Spring was fashionable then, and we made a horrible mistake thinking that such a region could live as a free people.

It was tribal forever, and each region had it's own core values.


But you can't seem to admit that BAC's mentor was a savage that abused his population.

[Althea]

Libya with Gaddafi:

“We are coming tonight,” Colonel Qaddafi said. “You will come out from inside. Prepare yourselves from tonight. We will find you in your closets.”
Speaking on a call-in radio show, he promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away” but “no mercy or compassion” for those who fight.

Qaddafi Warns of Assault on Benghazi as U.N. Vote Nears