BENGHAZI: Libya’s government, seeking to assert its authority over private militias following the killing of US diplomats in Benghazi, placed two powerful freelance units in the city under the command of full-time army officers yesterday.
Commanders of two units which have, with official sanction, been providing security since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi were ordered removed and the men of the February 17 Brigade and Rafallah Al Sahati militia put under army orders. A third unit, Libya’s Shield, would also change leadership, an official said.
No comment was immediately available from Fawzi Bukatif, whose command of February 17 made him one of the most powerful men in oil-rich eastern Libya since the uprising against Gaddafi last year; nor was there a reaction from Ismail al-Salabi, who had led the heavily armed, pro-government Rafallah al-Sahati.
Uncertainties and disputes over authority have seen clashes and other violence among rival groups over the past year.
The killing of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on September 11 - when the consulate was overrun by protesters and, some say, Islamist militants - embarrassed the interim Libyan leadership in the capital Tripoli and fuelled public anger at the continued presence on the streets of units from the revolutionary army whose loyalties are often unclear.
That popular fury after the death of a widely respected US envoy who had played a role in supporting the anti-Gaddafi rebellion drove another militia, Islamist Ansar Al Sharia, out of Benghazi on Saturday. Two similar units in the eastern Islamist stronghold of Derna disbanded on Sunday.
The army, an institution that is being rebuilt as elected leaders work on establishing democracy, took advantage of that wave of popular sentiment to order unauthorised armed groups to leave public premises in Tripoli - an operation which a military official said had been largely completed.
Army Colonel Salah Buhlaiga said two other colonels would replace Bukatif and Salabi: “I led the negotiations and we have done it successfully,” he said. “We have taken command of those two big militias.”
Reuters
