Category:

Seven killed in clashes between army and militants in Libya's Benghazi

Islamist militants attacked an army base in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Monday, triggering fierce clashes involving helicopters and jets that killed at least seven people and wounded 40 others after days of escalating violence. Benghazi’s clashes followed a week of fighting between rival militias for control of Tripoli International Airport in the capital that has prompted the North Africa country to appeal for international help to stop Libya becoming a failed state. Tripoli was calmer on Monday, but in Benghazi, militants linked to Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia attacked an army camp and were repelled by troops and forces loyal to renegade retired general Khalifa Haftar, who has been carrying out a self-declared war on Islamist fighters, security sources said. "Ansar al-Sharia tried to take over one special forces camp, but the special forces and Hafter’s forces fought back, using helicopters and military […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Seven killed in clashes between army and militants in Libya’s Benghazi

Islamist militants attacked an army base in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Monday, triggering fierce clashes involving helicopters and jets that killed at least seven people and wounded 40 others after days of escalating violence. Benghazi’s clashes followed a week of fighting between rival militias for control of Tripoli International Airport in the capital that has prompted the North Africa country to appeal for international help to stop Libya becoming a failed state. Tripoli was calmer on Monday, but in Benghazi, militants linked to Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia attacked an army camp and were repelled by troops and forces loyal to renegade retired general Khalifa Haftar, who has been carrying out a self-declared war on Islamist fighters, security sources said. "Ansar al-Sharia tried to take over one special forces camp, but the special forces and Hafter’s forces fought back, using helicopters and military […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Libya publishes parliamentary election results

Libya’s electoral committee on Monday announced results of an earlier parliamentary election, but many fear it might fuel the ongoing clashes between pro-secular militia and armed Islamist groups. The polls, held on June 25, elected the new parliament House of Representatives to replace the previous General National Congress. All 1,714 contestants were registered as independent candidates, as party lists are not allowed under current electoral law. Of the total 200 seats in the new parliament, 188 were set, while the remaining 12 seats were absent due to boycott or insecurity in some electoral districts, according to Libya’s High National Electoral Commission. Analysts said the secular factions have seemingly taken most of the seats, while the Islamist lawmakers, who had a bigger say in the old parliament, only won around 30 seats this time. Some feared that the results might intensify the current armed clashes between […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Libya's Largest Oil Field to Make First Export

The first export from Libya’s largest oil field Sharara is due later Monday but production has fallen since last week , an official said. The expected shipment is the first tangible sign that a recent recovery in the country’s troubled oil industry could translate into extra supplies to global markets. Eni’s West Libyan Gas Project, Wafa oil field in Libya-the French firm also owns a share of the Sharara oil field that is due to make its first export on Monday 21 July. European Pressphoto Agency The reopening of two key Eastern terminals and of the Sharara field have been overshadowed by the pullout of oil expatriates following escalating violence in Tripoli’s airport . But a spokesman for Libya’s state-run National Oil Co. said that "shipment will start today" for Sharara’s oil. The field, located in Western Libya, resumed production 12 days ago but its initial supply was used […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Libya’s Largest Oil Field to Make First Export

The first export from Libya’s largest oil field Sharara is due later Monday but production has fallen since last week , an official said. The expected shipment is the first tangible sign that a recent recovery in the country’s troubled oil industry could translate into extra supplies to global markets. Eni’s West Libyan Gas Project, Wafa oil field in Libya-the French firm also owns a share of the Sharara oil field that is due to make its first export on Monday 21 July. European Pressphoto Agency The reopening of two key Eastern terminals and of the Sharara field have been overshadowed by the pullout of oil expatriates following escalating violence in Tripoli’s airport . But a spokesman for Libya’s state-run National Oil Co. said that "shipment will start today" for Sharara’s oil. The field, located in Western Libya, resumed production 12 days ago but its initial supply was used […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Clashes between rival militias in Libya kill 47

Clashes between rival Libyan militias fighting for control of the international airport in the capital, Tripoli, have killed 47 people over the past 24 hours, Libya’s Health Ministry said. The ministry said on its website late Sunday that the fighting also left 120 people wounded. It also said it had not yet received the full casualty report. The weeklong battle over the airport is being waged by a powerful militia from the western city of Zintan, which controls the facility, and Islamist-led militias, including fighters from Misrata, east of Tripoli. The clashes resumed Sunday after cease-fire efforts failed. Television footage broadcast Sunday showed a mortar shell striking a Libyan Arab Airlines plane and a column of black smoke billowing from inside the airport, which has been closed since last Monday. Libya is witnessing one of its worst spasms of violence since the ouster of longtime dictator […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Can Libya remain united?

Libya is evidently disintegrating as the daily escalation of violence is aimlessly continuing and it seems that there is no hope insight for a ceasefire of some sort. The situation is getting progressively from bad to worse, by the hour, as Libya is quickly heading back almost to the time of pre-unification of the country in the middle of the previous century. Many observers are rushing to history books to inquisitively review that part of Libya’s past in an attempt to understand what is currently happening in the country and in which direction is it going. One day in late 1991, my brother-in-law, the late Mansour Rashid Al Kikhya, first foreign minister of Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, briefed me about that period of his country’s history, which he and a few hundred other young Libyans had aspired to build. They had in their sight the task of rebuilding a modern […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Libya truce shattered by fresh fighting

Fighting between powerful militias battling for control of Tripoli’s airport broke out again Friday, just hours after they had agreed a truce, an airport official and witnesses said. The clashes came a day after the government sought the United Nations’ help to prevent the country from becoming a “failed state.” “The airport was once again today hit by mortar fire which struck the security offices,” but caused no casualties, airport security official al-Jilani al-Dahech told AFP. Airport security forces returned fire, he said without giving further details. Libya’s main international airport has been closed since Sunday, with rockets causing damage to aircraft and the main terminal building amid warnings by officials that the facility could remain closed for months. The violence erupted when Islamist gunmen from the city of Misrata attacked anti-Islamist fighters from the city of Zintan who have been controlling the airport for the past […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Gunmen kill 21 Egyptian military border guards near Libya

Gunmen killed 21 Egyptian military border guards near the frontier with Libya on Saturday, highlighting a growing threat from an area that security officials say has become a haven for militants seeking to topple the Cairo government. Security officials said the assailants were smugglers. But an army spokesman said on his Facebook page that "terrorists" – the term authorities use to describe Islamist militants – were behind the attack. He said a weapons storage facility was blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade in an exchange of fire, killing the soldiers and wounding four others. The attack took place in Wadi al-Gadid governorate, which borders both Sudan and Libya. Two smugglers were killed in clashes with the guards, security officials said. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has repeatedly expressed concerns about militants who have capitalized on the chaos in Libya and set up operations along the border. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Libya rebels attack Tripoli's main airport

Several shells have hit the terminal of Libya’s main airport as rival armed groups fought in Tripoli for a fifth straight day, and gunmen assassinated a female politician in the country’s east. In another sign of growing turmoil, air controllers on Thursday halted work in Tripoli, shutting off much of the oil-producing country from international traffic. Tripoli International Airport has been a battlefield since fighters attacked it with heavy guns on Sunday to wrest control from a rival militia which has been based there since the fall of Libya’s late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The conflict is fuelling worries that Libya is on the point of turning into a failed state where a weak central government is powerless to control the militias which helped oust Gaddafi in 2011. The airport fighting pits brigades from Misrata, a western coastal town, against rival fighters from Zintan in the northwest. On […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple