ISIS has around 5,000 fighters in Libya with the capacity to carry out deadly raids into neighboring countries, Italy’s foreign minister told parliament Wednesday.
The figure is at the top end of recent Western estimates of the number of ISIS fighters in Libya and is likely to further fuel concern over the threat posed by the group’s establishment of a base in the troubled north African state.
“According to our analyses, there are today around 5,000 Daesh fighters in Libya,” Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told the Italian Senate, using an Arabic name for ISIS.
“They are concentrated particularly in the area of (the city of) Sirte but from there they have the capacity to carry out dangerous incursions (into neighboring states).”