Debka wrote:
>
Vol. 15, Issue 692, January 1, 2016
>
US Ground Troops for Obama’s New anti-ISIS Front in Libya
>
> With the Russians in charge of the war on ISIS in Syria and the
> US-trained Iraqi Sunni Hashid al-Ashari leading the Iraqi army to
> success in driving the jihadists out of central Ramadi, President
> Barack Obama is focusing on a new, still secret, project: A third
> front against the Islamic State which - much to the surprise of
> Washington insiders - he is planning to open in Libya and, even
> more surprisingly, with US ground troops deployed along with other
> forces.
> Reporting this exclusively, DEBKA Weekly’s military and
> intelligence sources have learned that preparations for the new
> campaign are afoot at operational commands in the Pentagon and at
> the US Central Command, CENTCOM, in Tampa, Florida.
> Their potential timeline is late February or early March 2016.
> For exterminating the ISIS bane in Libya, Washington is assembling
> a new coalition. While collaborating with Russia in the Syrian
> arena, and with the Iranians and the Iraqi army and Sunnis in
> Iraq, Obama is counting on France, Britain and Italy to join the
> US in putting up the bulk of the assault force for
> Libya. Discussions are in train with Spain and Egypt as well.
> The operational plan calls for large US air, naval and ground
> units to spearhead the assault on the main Libyan redoubts of
> ISIS, Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Sharia and other radical Islamist
> organizations. Cruise missile strikes will blast them from US,
> British, French and Italian warships on the Mediterranean.
> At the peak of the assault, US, British and French marines will
> land on shore for an operation billed as the largest Western
> allied war landing since the 1952 Korean War.
> According to details obtained by DEBKA Weekly’s sources, one group
> will be dropped ashore from the Gulf of Sidra (see attached map)
> to seize the town of Sirte, a city of 50,000, where ISIS has
> planted its central military command center in Libya.
> This group will then split up into two task forces.
> One will head south to take over the capital, Tripoli and its oil
> fields 370 kilometers away and reinstate Libya’s central
> government, which has been functioning in exile at the northern
> port of Tobruk near the Egyptian border.
> On its way to Tripoli, the force will take control of three towns:
> Misrata, Zliten and Khoms.
> The second task force will head north to capture the eastern
> Libyan capital of Benghazi, seizing Ras Lanuf, 200 kilometers east
> of Sirte, en route.
> A second marine force will meanwhile land in eastern Libya to
> capture Darnah, a port city with 150,000 inhabitants, which
> radical Islamic groups linked to Al Qaeda or ISIS use as their
> stamping ground.
> The most powerful ISIS ally is the ultra-violent Ansar al-Sharia.
> The Obama administration will therefore be going into Libya for
> the second time in four years – only this time up front and on the
> ground - for three objectives:
> 1. Control of Libya’s oil and gas fields.
> 2. Stripping ISIS of its jumping-off base for terrorizing Europe
> from across the Mediterranean.
> 3. Saving Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco from the noose ISIS and Al
> Qaeda are pulling around them from their back yard.
> If this campaign takes off, President Obama will have given up the
> cherished hope of winding down his presidency in 2016 with America
> at peace, and his long-held principle of not sending American
> troops into battle. Instead, he will bend every American resource
> to eradicate a key stronghold of the biggest Islamic terrorist
> menace hanging over the West and loosen its stranglehold on the
> African continent.
> Unlike the first Libya campaign, Obama will lead the second from
> the front.