The focus of ISIS counter-attacks has been aimed at retaking Sirte’s port and western sectors of the city, the hometown of late Dictator Moamer Kadhafi, military sources said.
Terrorist groups took root in Libya in late 2014, taking advantage of the chaos and power struggles that followed the NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed Kadhafi in 2011.
“A suicide attack using a booby-trapped car targeted the Abu Grein checkpoint,” the forces of the Government of National Accord said in a statement sent to AFP.
ISIS claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings against pro-GNA forces on Thursday, without mentioning Abu Grein.
In messages distributed online, it said a Tunisian and an Egyptian had detonated car bombs targeting “apostate” forces west of Sirte, US-based monitor SITE Intelligence said.
It was unclear if these were the same attacks the GNA forces announced on Thursday morning, since they have not specified the location of the two attacks.
Forces allied to the GNA captured the town of Abu Grein on May 17 as they advanced on Sirte, the terrorists’ stronghold in Libya, 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the east.
Thirty-two people were killed and 50 wounded in a car-bomb attack in Abu Grein the next day targeting the forces allied with the GNA.
Ten members of the pro-GNA forces were killed and seven wounded in Thursday’s blast at Abu Grein, said sources at the central hospital in Misrata, from where they launched an offensive against the terrorists.
The military command of the anti-ISIS operation said two other car-bombings inside Sirte itself were foiled on Thursday.
“Our forces managed to destroy two car bombs before they reached their targets,” it said.
“The two cars had targeted positions of our forces on two fronts,” AFP reported.
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