TRIPOLI: Daesh (ISIS) has strengthened its grip in its Libyan stronghold Sirte as new recruits and foreign fighters join its ranks while world attention focuses on Iraq and Syria.

Experts and sources in Libya say Sirte has become a new focal point for the militant group as it comes under increasing pressure in its traditional Iraqi and Syrian power bases.

“It is clear ‘ISIS central’ made an investment on Libya a long time ago,” in a strategy dating back almost two years, said Mattia Toaldo, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Foreign fighters from North Africa are increasingly flocking to Sirte rather than going all the way to Syria.”

Exploiting the chaos in Libya as rival militias and governments battled for power, Daesh seized Sirte in June, beheading and putting on crosses the bodies of militiamen who had been fighting them in the coastal city.

Officials in the army loyal to the internationally recognised authorities in the east say Sirte, the hometown of slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi, has become a destination of choice for new recruits.

“Sirte is now the center ... where new recruits are trained and instructed in the ideology of ISIS,” said Mohammad Hijazi, a spokesman for the military led by Gen. Khalifa Haftar.

“Hundreds of foreign fighters have flowed in from Tunisia, Sudan, Yemen and Nigeria to be trained and ready to carry out attacks in other countries,” said an army colonel who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A Foreign Ministry source said the number of Daesh recruits in Sirte was “several thousand” and growing, thanks to the “pressure” the militants are being put under in Iraq and Syria. Another government official said the “strikes against Daesh [in Iraq and Syria] could force it to relocate its leaders and command centres to Libya.”

The United Nations, in a report issued Tuesday, estimated that the number of Daesh fighters in Libya is 2,000 to 3,000, including 1,500 in Sirte.

“Everything has changed in Sirte. Daesh fighters roam the streets as though at home,” a former leader in Sirte’s local council said.

“They do checks to make sure people aren’t skipping prayers and enforce Shariah law, and women are rarely seen” in public, said the former official who fled to Misrata, located halfway along the coast to the Libyan capital.

The group strives to give the impression that life in Sirte is normal, staging events to publicise the opening of new bakeries or butcher shops while distributing videos of punitive amputations.

“Islamic State [Daesh] recognises that the chaotic situation in Libya offers it the opportunity to develop its influence network,” risk analysis firm Verisk Maplecroft said.

“It is likely to be able to maintain a substantial presence that supports its network across the region for as long as the civil war persists.”

In Paris, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the situation in the conflict-riddled country will be “the big issue in the coming months,” noting how “terrorism constantly mutates.”

Former colonial power Italy is pressing for an international summit on Libya along the same lines as a recent conference in Vienna aimed at ending the nearly 5-year-old war in Syria.

But for now there is no political solution in sight to end the conflict, with U.N.-brokered talks on the formation of a national unity government failing in the autumn and yet to resume.

Meanwhile, the group is trying to expand its zone of influence to Ajdabiya. Controlled by militias loyal to the recognised government, the city lies between Sirte and Benghazi in an area where most of the country’s oil and gas terminals are clustered.

Daesh is also fighting in some parts of the cities of Benghazi and Derna.

“ISIL [Daesh] is an evident short- and long-term threat in Libya,” Tuesday’s U.N. expert report said.

But it added that the militants face “strong resistance from the population as well as difficulties in building and maintaining local alliances.”