According to Libya’s top Tripoli-based prosecutor, 17 former members of the Islamic State, IS, group were found guilty of committing atrocities in the city of Sabratha and were issued death sentences by a Libyan court.
The IS members who were found guilty of murdering 53 people and destroying government property in the western city were given the death penalty. Two of the remaining 16 insurgents received life sentences. When the punishments would be executed was not made clear by the court.
After years of civil conflict, Libya is still divided between two opposing governments, with the division between the Tripoli capital and eastern Libya resulting in a large amount of lawlessness.
After the 2011 uprising that overthrew and ultimately murdered longstanding leader Muammar Gaddafi, the radical IS group increased its influence in Libya. In 2014, militants took over the cities of Darna, Sirte, and the neighborhoods of Sabratha.
IS was unable to exploit the disarray and seize major portions of Libya, unlike in Syria and Iraq.
Instead of taking control of Libya’s many, well-armed militia forces that were strongly connected by tribal allegiances, the organisation was restricted to small administrative areas scattered around the oil-rich North African nation.
Outside of Sabratha, there were other IS training facilities. Around 700 of its fighters, the most of whom were Tunisians, were stationed there at the beginning of 2016.
Affiliates of the organisation briefly took control of the city’s security headquarters in March 2016, killed 12 Libyan security officers, and then blocked neighboring roadways with the headless corpses.
IS turned Sirte’s main Martyrs’ Square into a location for public extrajudicial executions, including beheadings with a sword, for a variety of infractions.
U.S. military specialists calculated that in April 2016, when it was at its most powerful, the Libyan branch of the terrorists group had enlisted some 6,000 fighters.
Late in 2016, IS was expelled from Sirte, its largest stronghold along the coast, and withdrew inland. However, the militants continue to have a negligible presence in a few isolated locations of the nation, particularly those close to Sabratha.
As part of its campaign to destroy the IS, the US launched an airstrike on a training facility close to Sabratha in February 2016, which resulted in the deaths of at least 40 persons.