— Six years after Muammar Gaddafi's fall,
fighting between rival governments and militias
has plunged Libya into anarchy.
Last year, ISIS took control of Sirte, the former strongman’s hometown.
— U.S. forces pounded the city with airstrikes in support of Libyan soldiers,
700 of whom died in the seven-month campaign to retake the city.
But the fractious militias guarding Sirte have no real control,
and ISIS is regrouping nearby.
— All of this was Daesh?
— This used to be the largest ISIS stronghold outside Iraq and Syria.
Until a few months ago,
thousands of ISIS fighters had held Sirte for nearly two years.
They drove out almost all of the city’s 80,000 residents.
— This is American?
— Kamal Mohamed used to teach at a local school before ISIS moved in.
— His wife and five children fled last August when the heaviest fighting began.
— This is one of the first times he’s been back.
ISIS fighters converted his home into a base,
turning this residential neighborhood into a full-blown battleground.
— Where does it lead, this tunnel?
— That’s your father's?
— How was ISIS able to come in and take such control here?
— Since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011,
Libya has steadily descended into chaos—
that’s what created a vacuum for groups like ISIS to move into.
Sirte is now under the control of local militia units.
But these fighters haven’t been paid in months,
and there are fears the dangers aren’t over.
There is an official Libyan army, loyal to the internationally-backed government in Tripoli,
but there are many other factions vying for supremacy.
That created the void filled by ISIS,
and things aren’t improving.
— Ahmed el Sherif is part of the Libyan army,
but even for them, ISIS continues to pose a threat.
— 20-year-old Ahmed Elershiya was one of nearly a hundred ISIS fighters captured inside Sirte.
— He said he was talking with us of his own free will,
but a prison guard was present throughout.
Ahmed is Libyan,
he’s from a good family in Tripoli, his father is a politician.
But he was inspired to join ISIS in Sirte after reading news reports about their exploits.
— Ahmed explained the inner workings of “the organization,” as he calls it,
made up mostly of foreign fighters,
and how they were able to take control of a city
thousands of miles from the group’s de-facto capital in Syria.
— Do you think it could happen again, somewhere else?
— Ahmed’s future looks bleak,
but ISIS could still have one in Libya.
— While there’s nothing left of ISIS in Sirte,
many of the fighters escaped,
and have regrouped just a couple of hundred miles up the coast.