TRIPOLI: Gunmen linked to Libyan military chief Khalifa Haftar exchanged artillery and gun fire overnight in the country’s south, authorities and local media said on Tuesday, with medics reporting one person dead.
The clashes come a week before the war-torn North African country is due to hold a presidential election that observers fear could trigger a return to conflict after a year-long ceasefire.
“A militia armed with heavy weaponry and armoured vehicles… stole 11 four-wheel-drive vehicles from Sebha in an armed robbery,” Sebha’s police force said.
It identified the attackers as members of a group commanded by Mabruk Sahban and affiliated with Haftar, who is a candidate in the December 24 polls and whose forces control much of Libya’s south.
The stolen vehicles had been sent to Sabha by the interior ministry in Tripoli to help secure the election, the police statement said.
Sahban’s forces attacked a police convoy and forced officers to drive the vehicles to Brak airbase, south of Sebha, it added.
Sebha security forces and pro-Haftar gunmen later clashed in central Sabha, local media reported.
Footage online apparently showed night-time clashes with small arms in the city centre.
Sebha Medical Center said in a Facebook post that “last night due to events in the city we received two wounded people and one dead”.
Local media said schools and public services were closed across the city on Tuesday.
Haftar had in 2019 seized much of southern Libya including oil infrastructure, military sites and the southwestern city of Sebha, before launching a blistering assault on capital Tripoli, 650 kilometres to the north.
Western Libyan forces pushed him back to his eastern stronghold a year later, but he retained an armed presence in the south.
A ceasefire formally signed in October 2020 paved the way for a UN-led political process to bring in an interim unity government tasked with leading Libya until the elections — in which Haftar is a candidate.
Libya has been attempting to extract itself from a decade of conflict since the 2011 revolt that toppled and killed dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
FEARS
With only days to go until scheduled elections, many fear a return to violence.
Standing near the port in Tripoli, Khaled al Turki said he has little optimism about the December 24 vote.
“The most prominent candidates are divisive,” the 25-year-old said.
“If there had been a candidate with broad public approval, competent and able to bring the Libyan people together, we would have been more optimistic. But that’s not the case.”
Before any government can fix the dire economic situation, it will need to bring security, said Adam Bin Fayed, who works with Turki at an international organisation in Tripoli.
“I hope that problems like electricity cuts, the lack of cash and (damaged) infrastructure can be sorted out,” Bin Fayed said.
“But the priority has to be security, because you can’t build anything … until security is in place.”
Like Turki, he is concerned over the lack of a unifying candidate.
“To build security, the president needs to be able to speak to all Libyans,” he said. – AFP
