Just 2,500 meters away lies the Sirte Conference Centre, where Daesh in Libya has established its headquarters.
There is an air of feverish tension, of uncertainty and fear. Here marks the end of civilization. The violent rule of the militant group starts on the other side of a half-shot-away wall.
The fighters - they can scarcely be described as the soldiers of a regular army - press themselves behind the wall, the North African summer sun burning down on them.
Shots are heard, and there is the dull sound of mortars exploding in the worst fighting here in weeks. On the sand-encrusted rear window of a pick-up truck, someone has written "el mansur" in Arabic script - victory.
"We're going in now," Ghasri's son says fingering his camouflaged helmet as he takes his leave of his father.
"You've come too late. The battle against Islamic State is over," Ghasri had told the reporters a few days earlier, looking at them over his glasses much like a strict teacher.
The comment may be exaggerated but it is not entirely unjustified.
Berlin, Paris, London and Washington all expressed concern a few weeks ago at the spread of Daesh in Libya, putting its numbers at more than 6,000 jihadis in control of a coastal strip stretching for 300 kilometres.
Stopping the advance would be impossible without massive airstrikes from Western powers, observers said. The main trading centre of Misrata could fall, followed by Tripoli just 190 kilometres to the west, they warned.
But then the Misrata militias mobilized. Today burnt out vehicles line the road eastwards from the city to Sirte, where until recently Daesh held sway.
The trucks were crammed with explosives that the jihadis detonated, causing heavy casualties among the fighters as they advanced to lay siege to Sirte.
Daesh extremists - considerably fewer than the estimates put out by Western military officials - were rapidly pushed back to the town, the birthplace of Muamer Ghaddafi, the dictator who was toppled and killed in 2011.
But the looming battle to take full control of the city, street by street, is likely to be bloody.
"We're fighting people who want to die. That makes them inhuman," says one of the militia leaders sitting at the back of a smoke-filled café as he draws on his hookah, his dark eyes sunk deep in a troubled face.
Ismael Shukri, the head of military intelligence in the region, says the jihadis have come in from Tunisia, Egypt and other neighbouring countries. Among them are fighters from the Boko Haram extremist group based in north-eastern Nigeria.
Shukri says there are also indications that three Frenchmen and two Swiss are among the Islamic State fighters.
He predicts many will try to melt away into the civilian population, shaving off their beards, and he expresses concern that there are sleeper units across the entire country. Misrata in particular fears revenge attacks.
While the battle is officially being led by the unity government set up with United Nations assistance in Tripoli in the spring, it is the part-time militias that are doing the fighting - a ragtag and ill-equipped army. Some of its fighters wear desert camouflage, others T-shirt and jeans, and only a few have helmets.
Virtually every family in Misrata seems to have a son at the front.
In the west of Sirte, ambulances with flashing blue lights race through the town's outskirts carrying the wounded to a field hospital.
A refrigerated truck takes 20 bodies back to Misrata. Hundreds have died fighting Islamic State since May, and the number of wounded is approaching 1,000. The worst cases are flown to Tunisia or Turkey.
Libyan commanders, fighters and politicians feel they have been left in the lurch by Europe. Apart from care for the wounded they need bullet-proof vests, night-vision binoculars and mine-clearing equipment.
The message from many here is: "The fight against Islamic State is an international one. We are dying here for you."
But Ghasri acknowledges significant help from outside. US and British special forces "have played a major role from the start," he says, referring to 10 soldiers and a drone that spied on Daesh forces.
"They provide the targets, and we attack them," he says. Some of the attacks are carried out using jets that had not flown since 1986.
Victory over Daesh would be a major success for the new government in Tripoli, but whether the alliance on the battlefront will survive that victory is unclear.
Daesh has paradoxically proved a unifying factor. Without the backing of the many militias across Libya, the government in Tripoli is virtually powerless.
In Misrata, the government's perceived inaction is the object of mockery by some and anger from others. There are many problems, from a lack of cash to intermittent power supplies.
And the main aim of the unity government - to unify the competing governments in the east and west of the country - remains a distant hope.
It was this chaos, rivalry and disunity that provided an opening for Daesh.
By Benno Schwinghammer
