By Ayman Amzein.
Benghazi, 21 May 2015:
In one of its worst single days in Benghazi since the start of Operation Dignity a . . .[restrict]year ago, Saiqa Special Forces lost nine of its members in Benghazi’s Leithi district yesterday. A further 35 were wounded in the fierce fighting and were taken to Jalaa Hospital for treatment.
Not since the end of July last year when in nine days of fighting 63 members of the brigade died and it it had to evacuate its Buatni headquarters has the brigade suffered losses on such a scale.
The Libyan National Army (LNA), of which Saiqa is one of the leading components, has claimed on many occasions to have made significant inroads into Leithi. While it is clear that it is in Leithi – the amount of casualties it has taken there is evidence of that – it is also clear that the jihadists remain firmly entrenched in the area, despite air raids and heavy mortar fire by the LNA keeping the latter’s forces at bay by deadly, accurate sniper fire, and using it as a base to mount raids into other neighbouring areas, such as Buatni.
The men who died have been named as Ezzedine Drissi, Mohamed Al-Tawarghi, Hamza Drissi, Salah Al-Magarbi, and Faraj Al-Kuweri, Hussein Al-Wadawi, Nadim Salah, Sulaiman Al-Tawarghi and Suleiman Ojali.
How they died has not been disclosed. There was heavy bombing by LNA aircraft throughout the day and late into the night.
The gunmen fighting the LNA in Leithi are said to be now IS rather than Ansar Al-Sharia, with many of them foreign and are fighting with a ferocity born out of a lack of fear of death.
Meanwhile, other unconfirmed reports speak of a further two LNA soldiers killed in the fighting in neighbouring Buatni.
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