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By Libya Herald reporters.
Benghazi, 18 March 2017:
After a siege lasting almost eight weeks, the militants in Ganfouda’s 12 Apartment complex were finally overwhelmed this morning in an all-out assault by the Libyan National Army during which a Mig-21 crashed.
A senior military source said 31 bodies were found in the buildings while a number of women was brought out alive. It is not known how many soldiers were killed or wounded in the final stages of the battle. At least 12 LNA men are known to have died and some 30 been wounded in the course of the siege.
During the intense fighting eight militants tried to escape and were caught.
On 25 March the LNA had declared the complete capture of the Ganfouda enclave into which the Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council (BRSC) and their IS and Ansar Al-Sharia terrorist allies had been pushed in a campaign that properly began with a long and hard fight for the Leithi district in July 2015.
Yet it quickly emerged that that surviving militants had retreated to the 12 Apartments complex which they had fortified and apparently stocked with food and ammunition.
The Mig-21 crashed on a house in Buzira after delivering the last of a series of airstrikes to hit the 12 Apartments over two months. It is not known why it came down. The pilot ejected and it is understood no one was hurt on the ground.
