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By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 12 June 2016:
A suicide bomber reportedly driving an ambulance devastated a Misratan militia field hospital today, killing a . . .[restrict]doctor, an ambulance driver and two patients while injuring nine others.
The attacker was able to penetrate 50 kilometres behind the lines because it would appear checkpoints assumed he was ferrying wounded from the battlefield.
Paramedics and patients were among the wounded. Part of the field hospital, including the theatre, were wrecked. Ambulances waiting to ferry injured fighters back to Misrata were also seriously damaged.
Two other suicide attacks, using seemingly innocent vehicles, were launched at forces pressing into Sirte but reportedly caused no casualties.
While the fighting in Sirte today has seen no further dramatic advances after the fall of the port on Friday, there have been unconfirmed reports that senior IS leaders have been filtering through the Misratan lines and heading south. As of Thursday, it is understood that Libyan patrol craft have been sitting off Sirte in an operation designed to block any seaborne evacuation.
Misrata’s Military Council today ordered that no military units would be permitted to pass through the checkpoints into the city without its approval and that of military intelligence.
Meanwhile Brigadier Mohamed Al-Ghasri, the spokesman for the Bunyan Marsous operations room, told Alwasat that he could confirm British and US experts were helping with logistics and intelligence.
Ghasri later appealed for supplies of modern weaponry to combat IS snipers who, he was reported to say, had rifles that could hit targets two kilometres away. He may have been misquoted. The longest recorded sniper kill, by a US serviceman in Afghanistan, was 913 metres. [/restrict]
