’ISIS’ Targets Libya’s Sidra Oil Port for Second Day

Local Editor

Libyan petroleum guards' spokesman Ali Hassi reported that "ISIS" terrorist group resumed shelling near the Libyan oil port of Sidra Tuesday in which an oil storage tank in the port was hit by a long-range rocket causing fire.

Hassi further noted that the militants were some 30 to 40 km from the port, which they also targeted on Monday in an attack that left seven guards dead and 25 others wounded.

For its part, the National Oil Corporation [NOC] said the oil tank fire started just as firefighters were close to bringing under control another fire at an oil tank in the nearby port of Ras Lanuf, which was hit during fighting on Monday.

Relatively, Sidra and Ras Lanouf, Libya's biggest oil ports, have been closed since December 2014. They are located between the city of Sirte, which is controlled by the terrorist group, and the eastern city of Benghazi.

Libya slipped into turmoil after the fall of Muammar Gadhafi in 2011 and rival factions and militias have been competing for the country's oil wealth.

Eventually, the country's crude oil production dropped to less than a quarter of a 2011 high of 1.6 million barrels per day.

"ISIS" terrorists have taken advantage of a security vacuum to tighten their grip on Sirte, and have been threatening to advance east along the coast. However, they have not yet taken control of oil installations, as they have in Syria.

Back on Monday, suicide car bombers from the militant group struck near Sidra in which clashes took place between its fighters and petroleum guards. The tank that was hit on Monday in Ras Lanouf, 20 km from Sidra, was holding about 400,000 barrels of oil.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team