By Libya Herald reporter.
Benghazi, 17 June 2016:
Three soldiers were killed when a shell exploded at the customs storage depot in Bengahzi’s Ganfouda district last night. Seven others were wounded. All were members of 309 Brigade, from Tobruk.
Two of the wounded are in critical condition, Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed Mismari told the Libya Herald.
According to him, the brigade had moved into the depot on Thursday evening around the breaking of the fast at sunset, inflicting heavy losses on the remaining militants, both in terms of lives and equipment. IS forces, he said, had nonetheless managed fire mortars into the advancing troops.
Mismari meanwhile again warned residents not to return to Buatni, Sidi Faraj or Hawari until they were cleared on mines. The areas were littered with them, he said, and sappers were having difficulty dealing with them partly because of the scale of the problem and partly because they lacked sufficient equipment.
Yesterday also saw helicopter strikes on militant positions in Suq Al-Hout and, in a related development, the Libyan news agency LANA reported an LNA source claiming that an air raid had injured a top militant leader whom it named as Ahmed Hassan Almsheti.
According to the source, Almsheti is wanted in connection with several assassintions in 2013 and 2014, including that of American teacher Ronnie Smith, shot dead in December 2013 while out jogging in Benghazi.
