UK troops to tackle ISIS in Libya

UK set to deploy troops to Libya to fight escalating Islamic State terrorism
BRITAIN is looking to deploy troops to Libya as the country teeters on collapse and Islamic state consolidates a camp of more than 3000 militants in the North African country.
The move came as security chiefs tell the British Parliament the nation was the latest “major concern” for regional stability and as the world’s foreign ministers including Australia’s Julie Bishop meet in Rome on Tuesday to discuss the ongoing war with terror.
US and UK delegations of intelligence agents and diplomats have met privately to discuss joining an Italian-led multinational military force of 6000 troops to train local soldiers to tackle the growing ISIS menace.
The British are proposing sending 1000 troops, as is France which warned that
ISIS had established itself in former dictator Colonel Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte.
Intelligence has pointed to 3000 militants now in the country, having first arrived in the vacuum created by the overthrowing of Gaddafi in 2011, and were now recruiting further followers from the local clans.
Downing Street said no decision had been taken to deploy troops to the North African nation but confirmed discussions were being held with international partners on how to support the country which currently has no clear ruling government.
That was followed by the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser Sir Mark Lyall Grant, who confirmed that Libya had been regularly discussed by the National Security Council chaired by Prime Minister Cameron.
He told the parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy it had been discussed “two or three times” in the past six months.
“It is an issue of major concern in a number of different contexts — in the counter-terrorism context, the stability context and the migration context,” he said.
“When we discuss counter-terrorism, Libya is a feature. When we discuss migration, Libya is a feature. But we have also discussed Libya itself in terms of instability and the political progress. We take them into account on all of these issues.”
The possibility of opening up a new battlefront on the Mediterranean coast poses numerous dangers including prompting more refugees to flee the troubled region.
The French Government has warned that with that exodus could be ISIS fighters and since the country was leaderless it was virtually impossible to determine a genuine refugee from a fighter in the chaos.
Rival militias seen as moderate are also not yet keen to allow a force from the West to be in their country.
Today the Ministerial Meeting of the “Small Group Global Coalition to Counter ISIS/Daesh” will meet in Rome.
Co-chaired by Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and US Secretary of State John Kerry, the meeting will pick up from a meeting last September to halt the “uncompromising threat to the international community”.
Discussion on Libya is to feature as is the refugee crisis that was now threatening civil stability in Europe.