Benghazi, Libya -
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.
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 aircraft in their attack,”
one source said, asking not to be identified for security reasons.
Since the 2011
civil war that toppled autocrat Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's fragile government and
new army have been unable to assert authority over rival brigades of former
rebels fighting for political and economic influence.
Ansar al-Sharia is
listed by Washington as a foreign terrorist organisation, and has entrenched
itself in Benghazi, where it has often been blamed for assassinations and
attacks on soldiers.
Haftar, a former
Gaddafi army officer who fled to the United States after breaking ranks with
the Libyan leader, has launched a campaign on the Islamists in Benghazi,
bringing to his side elements of the regular army and air force.
Tripoli's central
government says he is acting without the authorisation of the state. While his
campaign is popular with many in the east, his forces appear to be in a
stalemate over Benghazi for now.
In the capital,
the clash over Tripoli airport in the last week has killed at least 47 people,
the health ministry said, in some of the worst violence in the city since the
2011 civil war.
The clashes have
stopped most international flights, damaged more than a dozen planes parked at
the airport and prompted the United Nations to pull its staff out of the
country due to security concerns.
The airport battle
mirrors a broader standoff between rival factions competing for power in Libya,
each claiming the mantle of rebel saviour, each heavily armed and each
demanding their share of the post-Gaddafi spoils.
The airport area
is under the control of former fighters from the western town of Zintan who
have held it since the fall of Tripoli in 2011. Rival Islamist-leaning militias
allied with powerful brigades from the city of Misrata have fought with the
Zintanis to dislodge them from the airport.
The Zintanis are
loosely allied with more nationalist political forces while Misrata and various
allied militias are tied to the Islamist Justice and Construction Party, a
political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Three years since
Gaddafi's death, the violence and militia rivalries have all but stopped the
OPEC country's transition to full democracy as the government struggles to
stamp its authority on a country where the state holds little sway.
Many of the former
rebel brigades are on the government payroll as quasi-official security forces
in a failed bid to bring them under control, but many are more faithful to
political factions, tribes or even local commanders in a complex web of
loyalties.
Libya's oil
resources have often been targeted by different armed groups since 2011 to
pressure the government for financial or political gain. Last year a string of
protests slashed oil output to less than half the usual 1.4 million barrels per
day.
In a rare success,
a negotiated deal in April mostly ended a year-long blockade by a former rebel
commander over four key oil ports, allowing the country to start slowly
rebuilding production, shipping crude and earning vital oil revenue.
Libya state oil
company National Oil Corp (NOC) on Monday reached a deal with security guards
to end a protest at eastern Brega oil port, which is expected to allow the
terminal to reopen on Tuesday, a company spokesman said.
Reopening Brega
would allow the state-run Sirte Oil Company to start producing again and
further boost Libya's output after the end to other port and oilfield protests.
Late last week, NOC said production was around 555,000 barrels per day.
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