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CAIRO Libyan militias backed by American airstrikes said they have cleared the stronghold of the Islamic State in Libya, a defeat that would set back the groups ambitions in North Africa. The country, however, remains very unstable amid battles between rival militias, and the remaining militants could still undermine a fragile U.S.-backed unity government, analysts say.

Libyan fighters erupted in celebration in the coastal city of Sirte on Tuesday after a nearly seven-month struggle to oust the Islamic State, as the mostly pro-government forces were searching for any remaining militants.

The Islamic States hopes of extending its self-proclaimed caliphate beyond Syria and Iraq into Libya have been dashed, at least for now. But while their propaganda war and recruiting efforts have also been weakened, analysts said, the group remains active in other parts of the country.

Libya faces the specter of clandestine cells staging terrorist attacks, much like theyve done recently in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan after battlefield reverses in those countries.

The retaking of Sirte is certainly a negative blow to Islamic State affiliates in Libya because they will no longer have a territorial stronghold in the country, said Claudia Gazzini, senior Libya analyst for the International Crisis Group. This is significant because it no longer gives them the possibility to operate in the open or to recruit and levy taxes directly.

Libyan forces backed by U.S. airstrikes finish clearing the last Islamic State holdout in Sirte after a six-month battle for the militant groups former North African stronghold. (Reuters)

Yet despite its demise, Gazzini said, we cannot rule out that the group will carry out attacks in other parts of the country.

[Why its taking so long for the U.S. and its allies to defeat ISIS in Libya]

Libya descended into turmoil following the killing of dictator Moammar Gaddafi in 2011 in the aftermath of the countrys Arab Spring uprising. The oil-producing nation fractured into fiefdoms controlled by competing groups of former rebels. Rival governments were established in the capital, Tripoli, and in the east, with each claiming authority.

In the vacuum, the Islamic State and other extremist groups emerged in Libya. In early 2015, in alliance with other radical factions, the Islamic States affiliate seized parts of Sirte, situated in the heart of Libyas oil crescent. Within months, the militants had tightened their grip on the city and sought to create their own government.

The militants viewed Sirte as a possible fallback capital if their headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa fell. Recruits from other parts of Africa and the Middle East as well as within Libya streamed to Sirte, which was where Gaddafi was born.

Operationally, it was an important base and logistics hub for other ISIS fronts in Libya, said Frederic Wehrey, a Middle East analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The fall of Sirte arrives at a tense moment for Libya. Rival militias have been battling for territory and economic gain in recent days in the worst eruption of fighting in the capital in more than a year. Clashes are also underway in Benghazi, Libyas second-largest city, pitting Islamists against forces loyal to Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a powerful commander who recently seized control of key oil terminals, while his rivals were focused on besieging Sirte.

The violence has further challenged the authority of the unity government, which has struggled to exert control since it arrived in Tripoli in March. Those challenges are poised to become even more complicated as the Islamic State plots its next moves and a possible revival.

[Migrant boat traffic from Libya to Europe is surging and turning deadlier]

For it to find a place to govern and rule, it would need to find a locale suffering from marginalization and some sort of tribal or social constituency that would welcome it as well as a preexisting jihadist infrastructure, Wehrey said.

Today, some Islamic State militants are fighting in Benghazi. Analysts say that others who fled Sirte may have relocated to southern Libya, including the city of Sebha. The south offers a haven to regroup, but its remoteness in the Libyan Desert makes it more difficult for it to attract recruits and stage attacks.

There have also been reports of Islamic State activity in western Libya, including in the town of Bani Walid, where sympathetic tribes have provided the militants with safe houses, and in the coastal town of Sabratha, where the Islamic State has strong links to smuggling and other criminal networks.

Its hard to predict whether they still have a leadership capable of thinking up next steps, said Mattia Toaldo, a Libya analyst and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. The real question is whether the single jihadists will find a new home in other jihadist groups.

Tripoli could become the militants next target. Violence in the capital would further undermine the governments authority and dissuade foreigners from returning. Tensions are also growing between Islamist militias in the city, and any eruption of fighting could aid Islamic State cells.

Any outright conflict between these groups would certainly throw in disarray what little security there is in Tripoli, and this could open space for radical groups like IS, said Gazzini, referring to the Islamic State.

Even as the unity government seeks to capitalize on the liberation of Sirte and bolster its international legitimacy, many of its supporters are increasingly dissatisfied.

The militias that ousted the Islamic State are mostly from the city of Misurata. Many Misuratans say the recent clashes in Tripoli are an attempt by their rivals to claim the capital.

The Misuratans are not happy with this and might try to mobilize forces to Tripoli in the upcoming weeks, Gazzini said.

Or they could end up fighting Hifters forces, Toaldo said.

The more the instability, the greater the possibility that the Islamic State will regroup and that other extremist groups will form in Libya.

The important thing to underscore is that jihadism and the radical threat in Libya is still very much present, especially given the institutional breakdown of the state, the alienation of vast swaths of youths, marginalized towns and tribes, Wehrey said.

Read more:

As oil output falls, Libya is on the verge of economic collapse

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Islamic State loses its stronghold in Libya, but more chaos ...

BRUSSELS Migrants heading to Italy from Libya in leaky boats and inflatable dinghies have broken an annual arrivals record, Italian authorities said this week, underscoring the rising popularity of an increasinglydeadly journey that nowadays aims not for land, but for a frigid mid-sea rescue.

The number of boat migrants reaching Italy from North Africa this year surpassed 171,000, topping the previous record of 170,100, set in 2014, the Italian Interior Ministry said Monday. But 2016 is also the most lethal year for those trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. So far, 4,690 people have died en route, compared with 3,777 deaths for all of last year, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

[At least 239 migrants believed drowned in Mediterranean, U.N. says]

The surge in fatalities reflects the ever greater numbers of people attempting the journey deep into autumn, even as the sea turns colder and choppier by the day. More than three times as many reached Italy this November as did so in the same month last year, the U.N. says. On Monday alone, Italian and international rescuers reportedly pulled 1,400 people from the water.

People-smugglers in Libya are spreading rumors that the route is about to close, migration groups say, pushing people to undertake the risky journey now rather than wait for better weather.

Last week, at least eight corpses were recovered during rescues that also saved about 1,400 people,and morewere thought to be missing. Many of the rescued migrants said smugglers had told them thatthe Libyan coast guard is about to take over rescue operations and will turn boats back to Libya rather than take them to Italy,as is now usually the case.

The rumors point to a developmentat the core of the worsening crisis: The rescuers have become a crucial part of the smugglingprocess. None of the dilapidated smugglers boats now actually complete the journey to Italy. Instead, smugglers launch the overcrowded dinghies often little more than rubber rafts into the sea, then have the migrants radio or call for help when they are still close to the Libyan coast.

Smugglers no longer need large and robust boats. They need small boats that can make it a short distance and then have search-and-rescue pick them up, said Elizabeth Collett, director of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute Europe. How do you break that cycle? You cant stop search-and-rescue.

Although the Libyan coast guard and navy are, indeed,stepping up efforts to halt smuggling and return people to shore, they are hampered by Libyas chaotic civil war and lack of centralized authority.Few Western officials expect the countrys military forces to be able to mount a large-scale effort to intercept the traffic. And even when migrants are turned back, poor conditions in Libya often spur them to make another attempt. For now, the smugglers seem to be feeding migrants fears to drum up business.

[A Libyan militia confronts the worlds migrant crisis]

Migrants often say that they expected better boats for the voyage but that by the time they seethe rubber dinghies waiting onshore, the smugglers give them no opportunities to reconsider.

The tactics appear to be more reckless, said Joel Millman, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, referring to the smugglers.

Many smugglers launch several dinghies in the same area at once, migration groups say, creating a bigger challenge for rescuers when the vessels capsize.

Migrants drawings of their journeys show stick figures lined up 20 across, with more people sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the edges of the boats. One drawing that was given to the U.N. refugee agency shows a boat with a special section for women, with the rear reserved for jerrycans of fuel.The person who did thatdrawing said the boat was about 45 feet long.

It is really the image of the slave boats, all packed in rows, said Carlotta Sami, a Rome-based spokeswoman for the U.N. refugee agency. The vessels collapse after traveling just a few miles, she added, because they are of such a poor quality.

The people who use the Libyan route are largely from Sub-Saharan Africa, mostly from Eritrea, Nigeria andGambia, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Most of those who use the route via Turkey are fleeing conflict in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Flows from Turkey to Greece surged last year to almost 1million people, then nearly stopped this year. In a deal with the European Union that went into effect in April, Turkey agreed to stem the flow in return for more E.U. support for refugees and visa-free travel in Europe for Turkish citizens. Since then, about 20,000 asylum seekers and migrants have arrived in Greece, compared with 735,000 during the same period last year.

However, relations between Ankara and the European Union have taken a turn for the worse since a failed coup attempt in July in Turkey led to a political crackdown. Just last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoganthreatened to unleash a new migration crisis on Europes borders by canceling the deal.

The warning came after the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to advise mothballing talks with Turkey about the countrys potential E.U. membership. Although the vote was largely symbolic, it reflected growing concern among European leaders about Turkeys direction and a willingness to let the refugee deal lapse despite deep fears about the political strain of taking in more asylum seekers.

Annabell Van den Berghe contributed to this report.

Read more

In Libya, United States lays plans to hunt down escaped Islamic State fighters

The shifting sea routes of Europes refugee crisis, in charts and maps

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Migrant boat traffic from Libya to Europe is surging and ...

In the intervening years, Gadhafi systematically stripped the country of its ability to self govern, installing a cult of personality where his mercurial political predilections prevailed.

In short, he was creating a state ready to fail as soon as he did.

He told me this without rancor, without grimace or smile. He spoke as someone who knows what they're talking about because they've done it. He had the precise certainty that comes from spending years experiencing Libya's equally mercurial and endlessly scheming tribes.

Libya has more than a 100 tribes -- with some spreading across the country's borders with Egypt and Tunisia -- but only a few of them hold sway politically.

Today his words haunt me. If there was ever a vision shared by former British Prime Minster Cameron and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy as they rushed NATO towards airstrikes over Libya, then it evaporated long ago.

Libya is in a mess. Three governments vie for power, multiple tribes compete for influence and a slice of the country's dwindling oil wealth, and ISIS managed to take a foothold in the city of Sirte -- Gadhafi's home town.

Like the Roman emperor Septimius Severus who diverted the treasure of his empire to build up his home town -- the splendid coastal city of Leptis Magna -- Gadhafi did the same in his own home hamlet, lavishing it with hospitals, homes, highways, and even conference centers. His fall bred a lot of resentment there, which ISIS perhaps exploited.

ISIS saw the chaos in Libya as ripe for exploitation and ideal for an expansion of their barbaric cult. Al Qaeda tried to seize the same opportunity several years earlier.

Their leader Ayman al Zawahiri sent trusted lieutenants there to establish a base.

These are roots Libya and the West can ill afford to see grow.

From an urgency to see stability and stop ISIS' growth in Libya, the United Nations hastened in a Government of National Accord (GNA) earlier this year.

The idea being that once established, the GNA as a sovereign government could call on allies to help it tackle ISIS. But from the moment the GNA's leadership arrived in Tripoli in March by boat from Tunisia, they have struggled to gain legitimacy.

They compete with the Islamist-dominated General National Congress (GNC) -- also known as the Government of National Salvation -- under Prime Minister Khalifa Ghwell.

In 2014, the GNC ousted the previous internationally recognized government -- the Council of Deputies -- that has since set up camp in the east of Libya, adding weight to fears the country could split along old regional lines -- east, west and south.

The chaos after Gadhafi's fall has also had implications for US Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton, who served as Secretary of State during this time. In 2012, a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi was attacked, killing US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The incident also showed how difficult the situation on the ground was for foreign powers to navigate -- not least because of the clashing factions and difficulty in knowing who to trust.

In any analysis of Libya, the killing of Stephens and Clinton's subsequent emails has its biggest impact in making the world's super power more cautious and less likely to engage where it's heft in finding a solution is critical.

Libya's ultimate salvation lies in its oil. This could fund the rebuilding of the country and spread the wealth wide enough so that enough competing factions can come together to impose a peace.

In recent weeks, oil output has doubled from 250,000 barrels per day to 500,000 thousand -- far short of the Gadhafi-era production levels in excess of 1 million barrels.

But while this may look the kind of forward momentum many in the West wish to see, it masks significant complications in Libya's spiraling conflict.

The boost in oil sales came off the back of a military offensive by the de facto defense chief of the former internationally recognized government, General Khalifa Haftar.

The move makes a mockery of the UN-backed GNA's ability to lead the country, put it under their control and own the oil. Haftar had refused to back the GNA and in this development has outmaneuvered them and put further question marks against their legitimacy.

So while the oil news looks good for now, the country has many more hurdles to clear, not least the need to address the competing regional interests. Haftar's explosive territorial expansion in the east did not come out of a vacuum.

Yes, those words uttered to me by Gadhafi's envoy in the Rixos five years ago still resonate deeply.

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Where is Libya five years after Gadhafi's death? - CNN.com

EXCLUSIVE: American arms dealer Marc Turi, in his first television interview since criminal charges against him were dropped, told Fox News that the Obama administration -- with the cooperation of Hillary Clintons State Department -- tried and failed to make him the scapegoat for a 2011 covert weapons program to arm Libyan rebels that spun out of control.

I would say, 100 percent, I was victimizedto somehow discredit me, to throw me under the bus, to do whatever it took to protect their next presidential candidate, he told Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge.

The 48-year-old Arizona resident has been at the epicenter of a failed federal investigation led by the Justice Department spanning five years and costing the government an estimated $10 million or more, Turi says.

Turi says the Justice Department abruptly dropped the case to avoid public disclosure of the weapons program, that was designed to force the ouster of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi during the 2011 Arab Spring.

"Those transcripts from current as well as former CIA officers were classified," Turi said of the evidence. "If any of these relationships [had] been revealed it would have opened up a can of worms. There wouldn't have been any good answer for the U.S. government especially in this election year." The Justice Department faced a deadline last week to produce records to the defense.

Turi says he was specifically targeted by the Obama administration and lost everything--my family, my friends, my business, my reputation.

As Fox News has reported extensively, in 2011, the Obama administration with support from some Republican and Democratic lawmakers explored options to arm the so-called Libyan rebels during the chaotic Arab Spring but United Nations sanctions prohibited direct sales.

Turi's plan was to have the U.S. government supply conventional weapons to the Gulf nations Qatar and UAE, which would then in turn supply them to Libya. But Turi says he never sold any weapons, and he was cut out of the plan. Working with CIA, Turi said Clinton's State Department had the lead and used its own people, with weapons flowing to Libya and Syria.

"Some (weapons) may have went out under control that we had with our personnel over there and the others went to these militia. That's how they lost control over it," Turi said. "I can assure you that these operations did take place and those weapons did go in different directions."

Asked by Fox News who got the weapons -- Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Sharia, or ISIS -- Turi said: "All of them, all of them, all of them."

Turi exchanged emails in 2011 with then U.S. envoy to the Libyan opposition Chris Stevens. A day after the exchange about Turi's State Department application to sell weapons, Clinton wrote on April 8, 2011 to aide Jake Sullivan, "fyi. the idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered."

Asked if the email exchanges are connected or a coincidence, Turi said, "When you look at this timeline, none of it was a coincidence. It was all strategically managed and it had to come from her own internal circle."

Turi also told Fox News that he believes emails sent about the weapons programs were deleted by Hillary Clinton and her team because that it would have gone to an organization within the Bureau of Political Military affairs within the State Department known as PM/RSAT (Office of Regional Security and Arms Transfers.) Thats where you would find Jake Sullivan, Andrew Shapiro and a number of political operatives that would have been intimately involved with this foreign policy."

The four felony counts -- which included two of arms dealing in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and two of lying on his State Department weapons application -- were dismissed last week against Turi with prejudice, meaning the government cannot come after him again on this matter.

The Justice Department decision, weeks before the election, coupled with the now public emails, cast a new light on Clinton's 2013 Benghazi testimony where she was asked about the movement of weapons by Sen. Rand Paul.

Paul: Were any of these weapons transferred to other countries. Any countries. Turkey included?

Clinton: Well, senator you'll have to direct that question to the agency that ran the annex and I will see what information is available.

Paul: You're saying you don't know?

Clinton: I don't know.

Turi first told his story to Fox News senior executive producer Pamela Browne in 2014, and since, Turi says he's lost everything to fight the Justice Department, which had no further comment beyond the publicly available court records.

"With all the resources that they were throwing at me, I knew there would have to be some type of explanation of the operation that was going terribly wrong in Libya," Turi said. "It is completely un-American...I was a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency."

Turi said he is grateful the case is over. "It really is ungodly, and unjust and unconscionable, that the entire force of the United States government came after me for a simple application. I was working for the U.S. government."

Turi added, "I never shipped anything. I never even received the contract. So all I received was an approval for $534 million to support our interests overseas. And it would have been the United States government that facilitated that operation from Qatar and UAE by way of allowing those countries to land their planes and land their ships in Libya."

Close friend and Turi adviser Robert Stryk described Turi this way to Fox News in a statement:

Marc Turi is a true patriot who served his country in the fight against Islamofascist terrorists in the Middle East. His fraudulent prosecution by Hillary Clintons associates in the Justice Department is deplorable as is the fate of the American heroes murdered in Benghazi. Our most loyal citizens deserve better."

And Turi hinted there is more to emerge on the 2012 Benghazi attacks which killed four Americans including Stevens.

"Now theres a flip side to this. Some of the operations that I was involved in, in another country for the agency has a linkage and theres a backstory to the actual buy-back program of the surface to air missiles that were shipped and mysteriously disappeared out of Benghazi," Turi said. "So we can save that for another time, but the reality is a lot of this could have exposed a number of covert operations that I dont think the American public would really want to know at this point in time.

Fox News asked the State Department about Turis allegations, and whether no weapons reached extremists groups on Clintons watch. A spokesperson said they would check.

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Pamela K. Browne is Senior Executive Producer at the FOX News Channel (FNC) and is Director of Long-Form Series and Specials. Her journalism has been recognized with several awards. Browne first joined FOX in 1997 to launch the news magazine Fox Files and later, War Stories.

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Arms dealer says administration made him scapegoat on Libya ...

On Sept. 1, 1969, 27-year-old Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi deposed the king and revolutionized the country, making it a pro-Arabic, anti-Western, Islamic republic with socialist leanings. It was also rabidly anti-Israeli. A notorious firebrand, Qaddafi aligned himself with dictators, such as Uganda's Idi Amin, and fostered anti-Western terrorism.

On Aug. 19, 1981, two U.S. Navy F-14s shot down two Soviet-made SU-22s of the Libyan air force that had attacked them in air space above the Gulf of Sidra. On March 24, 1986, U.S. and Libyan forces skirmished in the Gulf of Sidra, and two Libyan patrol boats were sunk. Qaddafi's troops also supported rebels in Chad but suffered major military reverses in 1987. A two-year-old U.S. covert policy to destabilize the Libyan government ended in failure in Dec. 1990.

On Dec. 21, 1988, a Boeing 747 exploded in flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, the result of a terrorist bomb, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. This and other acts of terrorism, including the bombing of a Berlin discotheque in 1986 and the downing of a French UTA airliner in 1989 that killed 170, turned Libya into a pariah in the eyes of the West. Two Libyan intelligence agents were indicted in the Lockerbie bombing, but Qaddafi refused to hand them over, leading to UN-approved trade and air traffic embargoes in 1992. In 1999, Libya finally surrendered the two men, who were tried in the Netherlands in 20002001. One was found guilty of mass murder; the other defendant was found innocent. Libya had hoped its fainthearted cooperation would lead to suspended sanctions, which had severely affected the Libyan economy. The UN did suspend its sanctions, but they were not formally removed for another four years, not until Sept. 2003, when Libya finally admitted its guilt in the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the victims' families. In 2004, Libya also agreed to compensate the families of the victims of the UTA airliner bombing ($170 million) and the Berlin disco bombing ($35 million).

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Libya: Maps, History, Geography, Government, Culture, Facts ...