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By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 18 May 2016:
Thirty-two members of Misratan-led “Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous” operation set up by the Presidency Council against the . . .[restrict]so-called Islamic State were killed in a series of clashes during Wednesday and 50 injured, according to the operation room’s media office. Five were killed in a fresh suicide bomb attack.
In a statement, the media office said that its forces had linked up with those coming from Jufra in the south, meeting them along the Waddan road that joins the coastal highway at Abu Grain. On the Waddan road near the junction, there was fighting with IS forces during which they managed to destroy a suicide vehicle but none of the operation room forces was injured.
All the casualties were on the coastal road to Sirte, at the new front line near Al-Wishka (25 kilometres east of Abu Grain), the statement said. There was fierce fighting during which five members of Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous were killed in suicide car attack.
According to the operations room, its forces were attacked by three IS vehicles, of which one was destroyed and two escaped. That was followed by clashes with IS fighters, said to be on foot. These were forced to retreat, the statement claimed, but the bodies of five of them – four black Africans and an Arab – were later discovered. It was after these clashes that the five Al-Bunyan Al-Marsous fighters were killed in the suicide attack.
Because of the fierce fighting with IS, the operations room said that the international community had “to deliver on its promises to support the legitimate forces belonging to the presidential council of the government of national reconciliation [sic]” by allowing to acquire arms “to stand in the face of invincible expansion of militants”.
On Monday in Vienna, 21 nations, including all five UN Security Council permanent members, backed a limited lifting of the UN Libyan weapons ban to Libya to enable it to fight IS. [/restrict]
