Islamic State Flight Simulator Operating in Libya

Islamic State (IS) terrorists are believed to be undergoing flight training on simulators in Libya.

The terrorists are training to fly planes using at least one flight simulator. There is a prevailing belief amongst investigators that the device was seized from the training departments of Gaddafi’s looted airports, Ashraf Al-Awsat a pan-Arab news daily quoted military sources as saying Wednesday.

Speculation as to why Islamic State members are training on simulators vary from the IS wanting to start an airline to learning how to hijack planes.

The news daily quoted other sources saying that the simulator is a modern one and might have arrived from abroad. It is roughly about the size of a small car and has a steering wheel to practice take-off and landing, a radar screen and a communications device to contact the control tower.

A group of  IS, retired officers from Libya and other neighbouring countries might have obtained the first simulator device that specializes in civilian planes in October last year, the news daily quoted a senior Libyan military officer to have said during an interview in Cairo.

A security official working in a team that follows the activity of IS in North Africa said that information about ISIS militants training to fly civilian planes in Libya exists and added that the Libyan Air Force which lacks armaments attempted to hit at least one base where the training is believed to take place several times but that the operations were unsuccessful.