Interpol has issued a warning to countries in the Mediterranean to be on the alert for an attempt by ISIS militants to carry out some sort of operation at sea over the next few days, Italian military sources have told Migrant Report.
Migrant Report is a non-profit project for measuring, investigating and documenting the impact of human movement, primarily in the Mediterranean region.
An article posted yesterday reported that in its internal warning to member agencies, the international police agency cited its sources as saying the terrorist group could be planning an operation off Libyan shores at the weekend.
The warning comes as smugglers in coastal areas west of Tripoli are preparing to send hundreds of migrants, taking advantage of a good forecast weather window, Libyan sources told Migrant Report.
Italian military sources said the warning was being taken seriously but they remained sceptical about the prospect of an attack at sea by ISIS.
Last week, there were reports of a boat with 400 migrants having left Ras Lanuf, an oil port in the Gulf of Sirte, on Saturday night. Though not controlled by ISIS, Ras Lanuf has not really seen boat departures since 2010. It is also very close to areas such as Nawfaliya (55kms), from which the group is known to operate.
However, no vessel was intercepted coming from the area by the European military and a spokesman for the Misurata Coastguard said no boat was sighted out at sea.
Nonetheless, the warning comes at a time when European leaders are particularly hawkish in the wake of the massacre in Sousse, Tunisia, in which 39 people (30 of whom were British) were killed in an attack claimed by ISIS.
British Prime Minister David Cameron promised a “full spectrum” response to the attack, starting with a team of investigators being sent to Tunisia but also including potential policy changes.
The EU is currently operating EUNAVFOR Med – a military operation designed to target people-smugglers but which for the time being is limited to intelligence gathering – while Italy has been running operation Mare Sicuro (Secure Sea) since November of last year.
Both involve several aircraft carrying vessels capable of medium-to-long range attacks, Migrant Report observed.
After the initial shock from Tunisia, the focus turned on neighbouring Libya after a senior security official, Rafik Chelli, told the Associated Press that 23-year-old Seifeddine Rezgui, the breakdance-loving student who carried out Friday’s beach hotel attack, was trained at an Islamic State base in Libya.
He said Rezgui and two suicide gunmen who attacked the Bardo museum in Tunis last March were also trained at the same camp in the Libyan coastal town of Sabratha – a point of departure for migrant boats heading for Europe.