On 26 July, the LNA announced the arrest of an alleged member of Islamic State’s (ISIS) religious police, Atiya Abdul Hamid Shalawi, in the Shiha neighbourhood of Derna. Shalawi was arrested in an ambush at dawn as he was trying to enter the city.
On 29 July, the 24th report of the UN’s ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida/Taliban Monitoring Team was published. The reported stated that ISIS activity in southern Libya had “gained momentum as a consequence of the preoccupation of the Libyan National Army with the battle around Tripoli.” Despite being removed from Libya’s coastal areas, ISIS fighters continue to be “a significant threat in the subcostal region, from south of the oil fields in the east to the boarders with Algeria in the west.” The reported also noted that the groups numbers had dropped to low hundreds and that “the only non-Libyan in the top leadership of ISIL is Libya is Iraqi national Abu Moaz al-Tkriti (not listed), while the rest of the leadership are Libyan nationals.”