ISIS is Weaker Than Before But Still a Threat: US Intelligence

The Pentagon has been monitoring IS growth in Libya and is developing a range of possible USA responses at the White House’s request, including the option of taking military action.

By contemplating a return to some form of military action in Libya, the administration is acknowledging how little progress has been made in restoring security in a country with major oil resources.

Kerry told reporters the USA does not want to use ground forces in Libya.

Earlier estimates had put the number of IS frontline fighters at anywhere from 20,000 to 32,000, including what defense officials said were about 17,500 “hardcore members”. “The case has been laid out by virtually every department”.

Officials say those meetings looked at ways the USA could work with worldwide partners against ISIS in Libya and supporting a new unity government.

US officials have publicly warned of the risks of Libya becoming the next Syria, where the Islamic State group flourished amid civil war and spread into Iraq.

Officials from 23 countries met in Rome to review the fight against Islamic State militants, who have created a self-proclaimed Caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq, and are spreading into other countries, notably Libya. Warring factions are far more focused on fighting one another than on battling the Islamic State, and Libya’s neighbors are all too weak or unstable to lead or even host a military intervention.

The announcement came as Saudi Arabia offered to send group troops into Syria as part of “any ground operations that the coalition against the so-called Islamic State may agree to carry out”.

According to estimates from the USA military, ISIS has lost control of 40 percent of its territory in Iraq and only 5 percent in Syria.

Iraqi forces pose with a captured ISIS flag in Ramadi, Iraq, on Monday.

U.S. officials have met with European officials and the UN Security council’s severally to pursue counterterrorism efforts and develop diplomatic possibilities, but there hasn’t been a viable solution yet.

“We saw that that’s what they were able to successfully do in Syria”. That’s the reason why we’re watching it that closely.

“ISIS is investing heavily in Libya”, one US official said.

Forming a unity government would most likely lay the groundwork for the West to provide badly needed security assistance to the new Libyan leadership. The mission could also be broadened to include training for Libyan coastguards, Mogherini said.

There is no functioning government now in Libya, where a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation bombing campaign helped overthrow Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi almost five years ago.