Defence minister promises inquiry into information leak as French contingent said to be operating from Benghazi airport

Sources in Libya say French special forces are among those working against Islamic State in the country. A small French detachment has been operating from Benghazi’s Benina airport, the sources have reported, assisting forces of the internationally backed Libyan authorities in Tobruk.

According to Le Monde, special forces units, alongside France’s external security directorate, the DGSE, have been in Libya for several months, and coordinated the November US strike on Derna which killed the most senior Isis leader in the country, Iraqi Abu Nabil al-Anbari. The Pentagon has confirmed that US forces were deployed there in January.

At foreign affairs select committee hearings in London earlier this month, UK Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood declined to comment on British special forces operations, but said the RAF was flying missions over the country in preparation for possible attacks on Isis. Italy announced on Monday that it would allow armed US drones to strike Libyan targets from bases in Sicily.



Isis fighters stormed the centre of the coastal town of Sabratha on Tuesday, four days after 41 of their number were killed in a US bombing raid there, and battled through the night with local militias. The police station was overrun, and when it was recaptured militia forces found the bodies of 11 beheaded police officers.

Fighting continued at daybreak after battles around Sabratha’s hospital and football stadium, with Isis fighters redeploying to a western suburb of the city, which lies 30 miles from Tripoli.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, has not commented on reports of a French presence in Libya, instead saying an inquiry would be launched into the leaking of sensitive information.

Pierre Martinet, a former DGSE officer, told France Info the development was reassuring and that he thought Le Drian must have decided to make the information public. “If not, it would have remained relatively secret and Le Drian would have said nothing.” Opening an inquiry, Martinet added, served only to confirm the revelations.

Earlier this month, a spokesman for the French president, François Hollande, said French intervention in Libya was conditional on the formation of a firm government in Tripoli, a request for French help, and an “international” coalition. Around the same time, Laurent Fabius, the French minister of foreign affairs, denied any French military involvement in Libya.

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche three days ago, Federica Mogherini, head of EU diplomacy, insisted that European states must wait until a legitimate Libyan government has been formed and a request for EU help received before any member state intervenes against Isis.

The Sabratha attack underlines the problems an evolving US-led coalition faces in trying to contain a rapidly expanding Isis. Hours before the Sabratha fighting, the US special envoy for combatting Isis, Brett McGurk, told reporters in Washington that the terrorist group had now prioritised Libya for recruiting, saying: “It’s trying to attract as many foreign fighters to Libya as possible.”

Analysts say Isis fighters are arriving from Tunisia and sub-Saharan Africa, mingling with thousands of migrants who are crossing the Sahara and seeking boats to Europe.

“Isis is creating a real African jihadi army, we can see mass arrivals of jihadis, they are impossible to control for the simple reason that they use the same route as migrants,” said Paris-based terrorism expert David Thomson. “The airstrikes can reduce the shock that is coming, but they need ground troops to stop it.”

US officials are still trying to determine whether last Friday’s bombing killed its primary target, Isis commander Noureddine Chouchane, who is blamed for organising the Sousse beach massacre last year in Tunisia in which 30 British tourists died.

The deaths in Friday’s airstrike of two Serbian diplomats, kidnapped by Isis last November, underlined the difficulty of bombing a militant group that bases itself in urban areas. Since the Sabratha bombing, Isis units in the coastal town of Sirte have abandoned barracks and checkpoints, clustering amid the civilian population to deter further strikes.

One Sabratha source said most of the Isis units in the city were foreign fighters, but were aided by local elements. “The Isis position in Sabratha is not as strong as maybe in other parts of Libya like Sirte, but in Sabratha they are supported by a bunch of local thugs.”

The Sabratha fighting came on a tumultuous day for Libya, with forces of the internationally recognised parliament in Tobruk recapturing large parts of the eastern city of Benghazi from Isis and allied Islamists.

Washington’s hopes for crushing Isis in Libya rest on persuading the parliament to end its civil war with the Islamist-led Libya Dawn group, which holds Tripoli, so that the country’s militias can concentrate on fighting the terrorists. But prospects of a deal faded on Tuesday, with Tobruk postponing a vote on a unity government amid allegations from some MPs of intimidation in the parliament chamber.

UN Libya envoy Martin Kobler tweeted: “Concerned by slowness of political process in Libya, overtaken by military events, must speed up to stop Daesh [Isis] expansion.”

The success of Tobruk forces in defeating Isis in Benghazi may paradoxically make the task of uniting Libya’s two governments more difficult, because it has stiffened the resolve of parliament to refuse a power-sharing deal with Tripoli.

Without a unity government in place, the Pentagon says its special forces are seeking to “partner” with individual militias for ad hoc ground-air attacks on Isis bases in Libya, even as those militias continue fighting each other. While critics say the plan is inherently unstable, the fighting in Sabratha has underlined that airstrikes alone are unlikely to inflict a decisive defeat on Isis.

