Libya conflict: Rebel forces under general Khalifa Haftar 'seize strategic city Sirte'

[link to www.bbc.com (secure)]

You have a map of controlled sectors on the link

Turkish forces
The LNA advance comes as Turkey is deploying military advisors and experts to Libya to help shore up the GNA, part of a trend of rising international involvement in Libya's conflict.

Haftar's LNA has received material and military support from countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan and Egypt, according to UN experts and diplomats.

In recent weeks, there has been an escalation of fighting, shelling and air raids around Tripoli.

On Saturday evening, a military college in the capital was hit, killing at least 30 people, a day after the only functioning airport in Tripoli faced its latest closure due to shelling and rocket fire.

Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was taken over by ISIL in early 2015, becoming the group's most important base outside the Middle East.

The city is just to the west of Libya's oil crescent, a strip of coastline along which several key oil export terminals are located. Haftar's forces seized the oil ports in 2016.

[link to www.aljazeera.com (secure)]