Scores of ISIL terrorists killed in northeast Libya: Report

Dozens of the ISIL Takfiri terrorists based in Libya's northeastern city of Derna have been killed in clashes with militiamen trying to dislodge them from the city, a report says.

"There were dozens of deaths” in the ISIL ranks as "armed men" struggled early on Saturday to drive the extremists out of Derna's eastern district of Fataeh, Libyan news agency Lana reported.

Lana, affiliated with the internationally unrecognized government in the Libyan capital Tripoli, said Fataeh was ISIL's “last bastion in Derna," implying that the terrorists had been driven out of the rest of the city.

The Mujahedeen Council of Derna militia group has been fighting the ISIL for more than a week.

The ISIL, which has been engaged in heinous crimes in different parts of Iraq and Syria, emerged in Libya in February, after releasing a video that showed the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians.

The terrorist group, which launched a military parade in the streets of the coastal city of Sirte in February, has also attacked oil fields to spread out its territory to the east of Sirte.

Libya has two rival governments striving to gain control of the country, with one faction controlling Tripoli, and the other, Libya’s internationally recognized government, governing the northeastern cities of Bayda and Tobruk.

In August 2014, Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) militia and some armed groups, based in the northwestern city of Misrata, seized Tripoli and most of the government institutions.

Officials of the Tripoli-based government say the ISIL has allied with the supporters of ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi to make strategic gains in the oil-rich Sirte.

MSM/NT/AS

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