TRIPOLI: Forces allied to one of two rival governments vying for power in Libya launched an air strike near Tripoli yesterday, officials and residents said, in a struggle that began when one group seized the capital in August and set up its own cabinet.
Libya is caught in fighting between two sides, each with its own government and parliament. One is a self-declared government created after fighters from a group known as Libya Dawn took over Tripoli in August. The other is the internationally recogniSed government, forced out of Tripoli and now operating from the east of the country.
Both sides gave different accounts of the target of yesterday’s air strike.
The Libya Dawn-linked government said through its own state news website that the target had been a poultry farm in Qaser Ben Gashir, a town south of Tripoli. The area is close to the old Tripoli airport, which was the scene of a month-long battle in the summer.
But the army of Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni’s government said it had hit military installations and positions of Libya Dawn in Qaser Ben Gashir, its spokesman Mohamed El Hejazi said.
“We are extending our strikes as long as we know more about the ammunition places,” he said.
Residents said they had heard an explosion in the area.
On Wednesday, Thinni’s government said in a statement his forces had started a military offensive to take back Tripoli. Thinni’s government has allied itself with forces of former army general Khalifa Haftar who had declared war on Islamists in May.
Libya’s neighbours welcomed plans by the United Nations to hold a new round of talks next week between the two sides, Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti said after meeting colleagues in Khartoum.
At the same time, the neighbours stuck to the UN position that Libya’s legitimate parliament was the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, according to a final communique.
REUTERS
‘IS has training camps in Libya’
WASHINGTON: The Islamic State group, which overran large areas of Iraq and Syria, has set up training camps in eastern Libya and the American military is closely monitoring, a top US general said on Wednesday.
General David Rodriguez ruled out military action on the “nascent” camps in the immediate future.
“They put training camps out there,” Rodriguez, head of US Africa Command, told reporters, referring to the IS organisation.
He described the IS activity in eastern Libya as “very small and nascent.”
“Around a couple hundred” militants were present at the camps and US forces would continue to track the area to see if the IS presence expanded, said Rodriguez.
When asked if the training camps in Libya were a potential target for American forces, Rodriguez said: “No, not right now.”
The four-star general said it appeared the IS militants in Libya were not volunteers coming from outside the country but militia members who had shifted their loyalty to the jihadist group.
Experts have warned that the IS group has gained a foothold in the eastern town of Derna, exploiting the chaos that has engulfed the North African state.AFP
