Add Libya to the list of countries the United States military is smoking out, officially, because a campaign officially began Monday, according to officials in the country as well as the Pentagon — the hope being it leads to the desecration and eventually the elimination of ISIS (Islamic State, IS, ISIL, Daesh) and their positions.

The target(s} hit in the African country fall in line with the overall goal: to augment the UN-backed government’s fight against the infamous terrorist organization. Specifically? To make them abandon their stronghold in the city of Sirte.

More from Reuters:

The first air strikes were carried out at specific locations in Sirte today causing severe losses to enemy ranks,” Prime Minster Fayez Seraj said on state TV. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the strikes did not have “an end point at this particular moment in time”.

Forces allied with Seraj have been battling Islamic State in Sirte – the home town of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi – since May.

The group seized the Mediterranean coastal city last year, making it its most important base outside Syria and Iraq, but its militants are now besieged in a few square kilometers of the center where they hold strategic sites including the Ouagadougou conference hall, the central hospital and the university.

The last acknowledged U.S. air strikes in Libya were on an Islamic State training camp in the western city of Sabratha in February.

According to the White House, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the strikes himself.

Numerous sources corroborate that hundreds of fighters with allegiance to ISIS currently occupy Sirte.

Airstrikes have been conducted in the recent past by Libyan forces but, unfortunately, their aerial fighters lack the firepower and precision the U.S. and members of the coalition possess.

For more on this developing story, stay tuned to the blog (and this post — it’ll update).