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On Aug. 1, 2016, at the request of the Libyan Government of National Accord, the United States military conducted precision airstrikes against ISIS targets in Sirte, Libya. USA TODAY

Smoke rises after an airstrike on the District 3 of Sirte, the last stronghold of Islamic State fighters on Sept. 28, 2016. France will host an international meeting on strife-ridden Libya next week featuring several countries in the region including Egypt and Gulf states, the French government's spokesman said. / AFP PHOTO / Fabio BucciarelliFABIO BUCCIARELLI/AFP/Getty Images ORIG FILE ID: AFP_GL7FA(Photo: Fabio Bucciarelli, AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON Ahandful of drones controlled from the United States and a small force of offshore Marine aircraft played a decisive role in defeating Islamic State fightersin Libya last December, the most prominent example of how the U.S. military can helpwina key battlefrom afar.

The four-month air campaign to drive militants from Sirte without committing large numbers of U.S. advisers or ground forcesis being studied as a model for future U.S. military efforts against the Islamic Stateas its fighters are ousted from Iraq and Syria and seek refuge elsewhere.

The fighting in Sirte was in a densely packed city where nearly 70% of the drone missions were considered so close to friendly forces they needed special authorization.

The missiles were sometimes delivered within 30 yards of local allies. Were literally talking almost across city streets, Col. Case Cunningham, commander of the 432nd Expeditionary Wing at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, said in a recent interview on the operation. He provided previously unreported details of the successful campaign.

There were no reports of civilian casualties.

The Sirte operation will serve as a model for future U.S. operations in the region, Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, commander of U.S. Africa Command, recently told Congress.

Wherever they go were going to find them and rid cities of their presence, Cunningham said.

The U.S. Air Force relied exclusively on three MQ-9 Reapersflown from bases in Nevada, Tennessee and North Dakota.Marinesoperated from amphibious ships and asmall number of Special Forces were dispatched to workwith local ground forces fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

The Pentagon hadbecomeincreasingly alarmed overthe growing strength of ISISin Sirte, a city on the Mediterranean coast near Libya's valuable oil-producing operations.

Smoke billows from buildings after the air force from the pro-government forces loyal to Libya's Government of National Unity fired rockets targeting Islamic State positions in Sirte on July 18, 2016, during an operation to recapture the militants' coastal stronghold.(Photo: Mahmud Turkia, AFP/Getty Images)

ISIS, whichhad taken over the city in May 2015, expanded to about 6,000 fighters in Libya, the militants' largest stronghold outside of Iraq and Syria.It was an ideal place for the militants to grow: the centralgovernment was divided,militias held sway over much of the oil-rich country, andU.S. intelligence was sketchy.

Last summer, it became clear that a militia from Misrata, a coastal city about 150 miles west of Sirte, was willing to take on the militants and back Libya's newly established government of national accord. That prompted President Barack Obama to authorizemilitary support for the new government last July.The willingness of the Misrata militia to fight was impressive, said Col. Todd Simmons, commander of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Still, the challenge was enormous. The U.S. military was asked to provide airstrikes from afar with few contacts on the ground and in a heavilypopulated city.It was street-to-street fighting in a very dense environment, Cunningham said.

Teams of Special Forces in the area helpedoversee the fighting, and the Marines were forced to be creativein providingclose air support, Simmons said.

The Reaper drones producedround-the-clock imagesof what the city looked like, he said. My folks knew that town inside and out.

The Reapers also firedprecise Hellfire missiles and reacted quickly to threats, such astaking out an individual sniper in a building. Nearly 70% of the drone airstrikes were danger close, meaning they needed special authorization since friendly forces were inside the blast radius, Cunningham said.

Between August and December, the drones and Marines conducted 495 airstrikes in Sirte. By early December the Misrata militia had pushed out ISIS and controlled the city.

David Deptula, a retired Air Force three-star general,said the Sirte campaign highlights the effectiveness of such a remote-controlled operation. What people forget is that drones are the most precise and effective means of applying force at a distance that we have in our military inventory, he said.

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Exclusive: Inside the anti-Islamic State air campaign command center

Seen from above, how one of the largest airstrikes against ISIS unfolded

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How US drones helped win a battle against ISIS for first time in Libya - USA TODAY

President Trump's team needs to take care to prevent Libya from falling under the sway of Russia, according to U.S. policymakers and experts.

"It is important that in Libya, whatever government gets installed, it's not another puppet government of Russia," New York Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Examiner.

Libya, which has experienced chaos as warring factions have strive for power following the ouster of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, has emerged as the next theater of Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to expand his influence on the world stage. As crises in Syria and Ukraine have pit Russia against the West, Putin's team has sent forces to Libya to support a leading warlord and added the nation to his diplomatic agenda.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is hosting the European Union's top diplomat at the end of April. "The parties will discuss the state of and prospects for Russia-EU relations and key international problems, including the situation in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq and Libya, the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal), Middle East settlement, and the fight against international terrorism," the Russian Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday.

That bulletin, which echoed the Russian preview of Lavrov's meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was released one day after Putin hosted Italian President Sergio Mattarella at the Kremlin to discuss foreign policy. That was the second high-level visit by an Italian official to Moscow in three weeks, as Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano made his own trek to talk to Lavrov. That meeting alarmed some U.S. lawmakers, who worried that it might provide Russia an avenue for cutting energy agreements that undermine the economic sanctions imposed by the West in retaliation for Russia's aggression in Ukraine.

Italy is a key player in any international diplomacy involving Libya, Russia and other Western allies. It is a member of the EU, NATO and the G-7, but it has a tradition of strong ties with Russia, relative to other Western powers.

"Foreign direct investment from Russia going into Italy, it's pretty high, so they've got economically a lot to sustain by maintaining relations," the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Boris Zilberman, an expert on the Middle East and Russia, told the Washington Examiner.

Italy has long counted Libya within its sphere of influence. The two countries are separated by less than 300 miles, so it has been on the front lines of a refugee crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people flee North Africa for Europe.

That leaves Italy with a particularly strong interest in Russia's activity in Libya. "We hope for a constructive approach on the part of Moscow, and its understanding that stabilizing the situation in Libya and the Mediterranean is quite important for Italy," Mattarella said during a joint press conference with Putin.

Russia might hope to convince Italy to undermine the Ukraine-related economic sanctions, but western leaders don't expect that to happen directly. "We have a very strong bilateral relationship with Italy," acting State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on Wednesday. "Italy's a very strong friend and partner to the United States. And we believe, as I said, that regardless of who is meeting with Russian leadership, they're hearing the same message."

Those economic sanctions give Russia an additional incentive to play powerbroker in Libya, however. Rosneft, a state-run energy company that was targeted by the west following the Ukraine crisis, has struck an energy agreement with Libya's National Oil Corporation. The corporation is officially controlled by rivals of Haftar, Russia's partner in the country, but the general's forces control the most of the actual oil reserves.

Zilberman suggests that Italy wants "to have their cake and eat it, too" when it comes to Russia. Does that make them more likely to support Haftar, or another Libyan power player who could be expected to throw Russia's energy sector a lifeline?

Engel, who emphasized that Italy will stand with the west "when the chips are down" on an issue such as G-7 sanctions, isn't certain. "It might be a concession that Italy might decide down the road to make but we have no way of knowing that," he said.

The New York lawmaker knows one thing, however. "Whoever is installed in Libya, we have to do everything we can to make sure it's a government that will work with us and not work with Putin," Engel said.

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Engel: US can't allow Libya to become 'puppet government of Russia' - Washington Examiner

Credit and Development bank chairman calls on CBL to float Libyan Dinar Libya Herald One of the leading Libyan bankers has called for pressure to be put on the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) to change its monetary policy and float the Libyan dinar. Speaking yesterday on Iktisadia TV channel, the chairman of the Commerce and Development ...

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Credit and Development bank chairman calls on CBL to float Libyan Dinar - Libya Herald

Italian rescue ships have plucked some 2,000 migrants from unseaworthy smugglers' boats off the coast of Libya, with hundreds of them arriving Saturday in southern Italian ports.

One rescue ship brought 504 migrants and one corpse to Pozzallo, Sicily, and another boat brought about 500 other migrants to Augusta, Sicily.

In all, Italy's coast guard co-ordinated about 20 separate rescues on Friday. The rest of the migrants were due to reach Calabria on the Italian mainland on Sunday.

Separately, authorities said Saturday that 40 Algerians in three small boats had reached Sardinia's coast.

So far this year, some 29,000 migrants, most of them fleeing poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, have arrived in Italy after being rescued by European military ships or private charity organizations. Their numbers are expected to rise with spring's good weather.

A migrant child rests on the MOAS ship Phoenix after being rescued from a wooden boat in the central Mediterranean. (Zammit Lupi/Reuters)

In Spain, the country's maritime rescue said Saturday it had rescued 125 migrants in three small boats trying to make nighttime crossings from Africa in three smuggling boats.

The first boat, carrying 41 men and 11 women of sub-Saharan origin, was located by rescue teams shortly after midnight in the Alboran Sea east of the Strait of Gibraltar. A second group of 51 North African men and 11 boys was packed into a wooden boat when rescued just west of the Strait in the Atlantic Ocean.

Eleven more migrants were pulled from a small vessel in the Mediterranean Sea after a NATO aircraft alerted the rescue service.

A Somali migrant carries her 12-day-old baby on board a rigid-hulled inflatable boat during a rescue operation off the coast of Libya. (Darrin Zammit Lupi/Reuters)

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2000 people rescued off the coast of Libya so far this weekend - CBC.ca

UNITED NATIONS Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is warning that Libya risks a return to widespread conflict, citing the volatile security situation in Tripoli and fighting in the eastern oil crescent and elsewhere.

The U.N. chief expressed alarm in a report to the U.N. Security Council at the renewed military escalation and ongoing political stalemate in the country.

Guterres said the Islamic State extremist group no longer controls territory in Libya, but its operatives have been sighted, it has been blamed for a number of attacks in different areas, and the international community in the country remains a target.

He said in the report released Thursday that the potential for an escalating conflict remains due mainly to unaddressed political issues and the multiplicity of armed actors on the ground with conflicting agendas.

The overthrow of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 has spawned chaos in Libya. The power and security vacuum turned the country into a breeding ground for militias and militants, including Islamic State extremists and al-Qaida affiliates. It has also made Libya a gateway for thousands of migrants from Africa and elsewhere seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Italy.

Since 2014, Libya has been split between rival governments and parliaments based in the western and eastern regions, each backed by different militias, tribes and political factions.

A U.N.-brokered deal in December 2015 to create a unity government has failed because the U.N.-backed government now in Tripoli has been unable to win the endorsement of Libyas internationally recognized Parliament in eastern Tobruk, which is a prerequisite to assume power.

Guterres said the U.N.-backed Presidency Council and government remain constrained in their ability to govern effectively and to provide much needed basic services and security to the population.

He said the 2015 political agreement continues to be supported by the majority of Libyans and interested countries as the only political framework to lead the country forward.

An emerging consensus on the need for limited amendments to the agreement represents an opportunity to overcome the current political stalemate and move the transition forward, he said.

Guterres urged all parties in Libya to address the key issues blocking implementation of the agreement including the composition of various institutions, especially the executive authority and military command.

The secretary-general said he remains deeply alarmed by the human rights situation in the country where violations of international law continue to be perpetrated by all parties to the conflict.

Armed groups from all sides continued to abduct, torture and kill civilians, he said. In addition, ordinary crime was endemic, mainly owing to the state of general lawlessness and the weakness of judicial institutions.

Between Dec. 1 and Feb. 17, Guterres said the U.N. political mission in Libya documented 24 deaths and 24 injuries of civilians, mainly by gunfire, airstrikes, explosive remnants of war and improvised explosive devices.

Migrants and refugees in Libya also continue to suffer horrific abusers and risk death while transiting the country and across the Mediterranean Sea, he said.

While forces allied to the U.N.-backed government routed IS from its stronghold in Sirte in December, Guterres said remnants are still active in the hinterland of the city.

They also maintain a presence in the desert and mountainous areas south of Bani Walid and areas further south and west, and there are reports of IS sleeper cells in western coastal areas and the greater Tripoli area, he said.

Guterres also expressed grave concern at the deterioration of the humanitarian situation.

He said 1.3 million people need humanitarian aid, the health care system is on the brink of collapse and the U.N. has received only $9 million of the $151 million it appealed for to help 900,000 people.

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UN chief: Libya runs risk of return to wide conflict - The Denver Post