A Libyan courtroom has sentenced 17 former members of the Islamic State group to dying, a press release from the nation’s Tripoli-based high prosecutor stated.

The dying sentences got out to these convicted of taking part within the killing of 53 folks within the western metropolis of Sabratha and destruction of public property, in response to the assertion.

Another 16 militants got jail sentences, two of them for all times. The courtroom didn’t specify when the sentences can be carried out.

Libya stays cut up between two rival administrations after years of civil warfare. The divide between authorities within the capital of Tripoli and japanese Libya has led to widespread lawlessness.

Militia teams have additionally gathered huge wealth and energy from kidnappings and their management over the nation’s profitable human trafficking commerce.

The extremist group expanded their attain in Libya after the 2011 rebellion that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi. IS militants first seized Darna in 2014 after which later Sirte and areas surrounding town of Sabratha.

However, not like Syria and Iraq, IS was unable to revenue from chaos and take massive swathes of Libya. Instead, the group was restricted to solely administrative pockets dotted throughout the oil-rich North African nation, unable to realize supremacy over Libya’s quite a few well-armed militia forces tightly certain by tribal loyalties.

Several IS coaching camps have been situated outdoors Sabratha. In early 2016, some 700 of its fighters, most of who have been Tunisian, have been primarily based within the space. In March 2016, associates of the group briefly took over town’s safety headquarters and beheaded 12 Libyan safety officers earlier than utilizing the headless corpses to dam close by roads.

Sirte’s central Martyrs’ Square was reworked by IS right into a stage for public extrajudicial killings — together with beheadings by a sword — for all kinds of offences.

In April 2016, close to the peak of its energy, the Libyan department of the militant group had recruited round 6,000 fighters, US army consultants estimated.

IS was pushed from its important stronghold, the coastal metropolis of Sirte, in late 2016 and fled inland. However, the militants keep a restricted presence in small pockets of the nation together with the areas surrounding Sabratha.

In February 2016, the United States carried out an airstrike on an IS coaching camp close to Sabratha, killing a minimum of 40 folks, as a part of its effort to eradicate the Islamic State.