ANSD : Shelling hits Tripoli suburb as two-week battle rages on

THU 26 - 12 - 2024

Date: Apr 19, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Shelling hits Tripoli suburb as two-week battle rages on

_Reuters
AL-SUANI, Libya: Mortar bombs crashed down on a suburb of Tripoli Thursday, almost hitting a clinic and adding to people’s suffering after two weeks of an offensive by eastern troops on the Libyan capital, which is held by an internationally recognized government. The shelling came a day after seven people were killed when GRAD rockets hit a densely populated district of Tripoli, which the eastern Libyan forces of commander Khalifa Haftar have been trying to take, deepening the chaos that has plagued the oil-producing nation since 2011.

The Libyan National Army of Benghazi-based Haftar has become bogged down in the southern suburbs of the capital.

In Al-Suani, a southwestern suburb, Reuters reporters saw two mortar bombs almost hit a clinic.

The fighting has killed 205 people, including 18 civilians, and wounded 913 since the start of the campaign, the World Health Organization said Thursday.

Locals blamed Haftar’s forces for the shelling, saying the rockets had been fired from the direction of his positions south of the capital.

“We say to the United Nations and the Security Council: Listen. Listen to the bombing. ... Rockets are coming down on us. For this reason, please find a solution for us,” Youssef Salem, a displaced man from Al-Suani, said.

The LNA has denied shelling residential areas.

The Tripoli government issued arrest warrants for Haftar and other top eastern officials, blaming them for Wednesday’s shelling.

Eastern officials have already issued arrest warrants for Tripoli premier Fayez al-Sarraj and other western officials as there is no sign of a political solution or even of a cease-fire.

The internationally recognized Interior Ministry accused France of supporting Haftar and said it would halt security cooperation with Paris. “Any dealings with the French side in bilateral security agreements” will halt, the Tripoli-based Interior Ministry said in a statement.

A French presidential source said in response to the accusation that France supported the internationally recognized government in Tripoli and that Emmanuel Macron’s legitimate interlocutor was Sarraj, with whom he spoke Monday and reaffirmed that.

The French government was not immediately available for comment.

France has helped train Sarraj’s Presidential Guard and in October 2013 signed a deal between a consultancy of the French Interior Ministry and the Libyan Interior Ministry to train 1,000 police.

Most recently in February, France provided the Tripoli government with six patrol boats for its coastline.

Paris has given Haftar support in the past, however, viewing him as the best bet to end the chaos that has reigned since a NATO-backed rebellion to end Gadhafi’s murderous four-decade rule.

Italy, with considerable oil interests in the OPEC member, supports Sarraj’s government and was furious with French reluctance to back a recent European Union resolution urging Haftar to halt his advance.

Haftar enjoys the backing of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who view him as an anchor to restore stability and combat Islamist militants.

His forces came under attack Thursday by an armed group at the Tamanhint base near the main southern city of Sabha.

The LNA managed to repel the attack, which killed two of its soldiers, an eastern official said. But it exposed a vulnerability as Haftar has moved much of its forces north.

The identity of the attackers was not immediately clear.

The LNA seized earlier this year the south and its two oil fields, although tribesmen with flexible loyalties remain strong in the sparsely populated desert region.

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