The US government is ready to loosen a ban on arms exports to Libya in a bid to help the country’s fledgling unity government fight ISIL Takkfiri group

The US government is ready to loosen a ban on arms exports to Libya in a bid to help the country's fledgling unity government fight ISIL Takkfiri group, officials and diplomats told AFP Thursday.

Under White House-backed plans, the United Nations would carve out exemptions to an embargo introduced by the Security Council in 2011, during Moamer Kadhafi's failed attempt to suppress a popular uprising.

"If the Libyan government prepares a detailed and coherent list of things that it wants to use to fight ISIL and responds to all the requirements of the exemption, I think that Council members are going to look very seriously at that request," a senior administration official told AFP.

"There is a very healthy desire inside of Libya to rid themselves of ISIL, and I think that is something we should be supporting and responding to," the official said, using an acronym for the group.

Kadhafi's regime was deposed with the help of NATO airpower and he was ultimately killed in October 2011, but the country has been in turmoil since.

Dozens of militia groups have carved up the country into virtual fiefdoms and two rival governments have been formed.

Western nations and many Libyans have watched in horror as the ISIL has emerged from the chaos to control a swathe of central Libya around Kadhafi's hometown of Sirte.