Fighting rages between UN-backed Tripoli government and self-styled Libyan National Army
The battle for Tripoli intensified on Sunday as a military assault on the city by the eastern Libyan military commandant Khalifa Haftar led to 21 deaths and virtually 90 injuries, and international calls for calm were ignored.
As the fighting neared the capital city, the UN issued a plea for a temporary ceasefire to allow the wounded to be evacuated. Hours earlier, the US announced it was withdrawing some of its troops from the country, citing deteriorating” security facts on the ground “. India also withdrew a group of its peacekeepers, saying the situation in Libya had abruptly worsened.
The international airport 15 miles south of central Tripoli was a scene of fierce combats after Haftar claimed to have seized control of the region from the UN-backed government of national accord.
Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army, backed by the United Arab Emirates, is leading a multi-pronged assault on the capital in an attempt to overthrow the Tripoli-based GNA.
The death toll issued by the GNA and confirmed by Tripoli hospitals suggest Haftar's hopes of an immediate breakdown of the GNA's diverse defenses ought to have dashed. But Haftar appears intent on pressing ahead with a decisive battle that will endanger the chances of a UN-sponsored reconciliation between forces in the east and west of the country.
In a battle already marked by wildly conflicting claims, the LNA said the defences of the Tripoli militia were surrendering, but a spokesman for pro-GNA forces-out announced a counter-offensive against Haftar's forces.
The spokesman, Col Mohamed Gnounou, said Operation Volcano of Anger was aimed at” purging all Libyan cities of aggressor and illegitimate forces-out”, in reference to Haftar's fighters.
The LNA said it had carried out its first air raid on a Tripoli suburb, eluding calls by the international community to halt hatreds. Both sides launched airstrikes over the weekend, with Tripoli residents reporting indiscriminate artillery fire hitting homes across the capital.
In a fast-moving military situation, Haftar's forces claimed over the weekend to have captured Tripoli's international airport, in the southern part of the city, but this was denied by the GNA and there was fighting there on Sunday.
Tripoli's schools were closed for a week and queues formed at petrol station. The Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, said he was concerned for the welfare of Italian employees of oil firms such as ENI.
An air assault was mounted on military vehicles belonging to the GNA presidential council's Naqlia camp. It is thought Haftar has superior air forces supplied by the UAE.There is also mounting concern in Washington about Russia's role in Libya, with diplomatic sources recently accusing Moscow of deploying up to 300 mercenaries in east Libya to support Haftar.
Speaking before an EU general affairs council in Brussels on Monday, the UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, “says hes” would” work every channel to foster restraint and avoid bloodshed”, adding there was ” no justification for[ the] LNA move on Tripoli “.
Calls for sanctions to be taken against Haftar were heard for the first time, including from a former UK ambassador to Libya, Peter Millett. Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign affairs chief, will try to organise a united front at a session of the EU general affairs council on Monday. Tensions between Rome and Paris over the extent of Emmanuel Macron's past support for Haftar have been simmering for months.
The GNA prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, who accused Haftar of betrayal, has protested to the French ambassador to Libya, Beatrice du Hellen, about the French support for Haftar. On Saturday Macron spoke to Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, and the Elysee insisted he was calling for restraint from all sides.
The US evacuation was the first public acknowledgement that the US had forces in Libya. The US Africa Command said:” The security realities on the ground in Libya are growing increasingly complex and unpredictable .”
The US dedicated no details of the size of the force, or its mission, but said it might be sent back later. In the last three years US special forces have been deployed, along with British and French elite divisions, to fight Islamic State in Libya. The US has launched more than a dozen defines of airstrikes against Isis in the southern desert.
Footage on social media showed two fast US navy transport craft manoeuvring off a beach in Janzour, in Tripoli's western suburbiums, sending up plumes of spray as American forces were ferried from the shore.
Air tracking websites prove continuing US drone activity over Tripoli, and special forces transport airliners regularly shuttle between the western city of Misrata and bases in Italy.
Hopes of a truce rest on decisive western pressure being placed on Haftar's international backers primarily Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to order Haftar to back down. Haftar has been demanding he is built the nation's military commander freed from political control. Serraj claimed that in a recent round of talks with Haftar he made major concessions on Libya's future political structure but that Haftar betrayed those agreements.
Sarraj faces a choice between either seeking to defend the capital and waiting for international diplomatic pressure to force Haftar to retreat, or instead launching offensives of his own, thereby escalating the war and maybe losing international backing. Haftar's hopes that various groups inside Tripoli would defect to him have so far proved misplaced.
UN mediators continue to urge a ceasefire but some suppose Haftar is unwilling to compromise.” He has never been interested in the policy process. Even when I used to go and see him, he would say:' Security comes first, politics will follow ,'” said Millett.” His aim is to take Tripoli. I think they[ the UN] should impose sanctions. What other tools do the world community have ?”
Jonathan Winer, a former US ambassador to Libya, was also scathing about Haftar's methods, saying on Twitter:” Haftar has built patronage networks over a five-year period now reinforced by foreign financial support and military supporting. His goal has long been to take[ the] country by concoction of conquering and acclamation and to end' politics' and replace that with military regulation .”
On Sunday, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo called for an” immediate halt” to Haftar's offensive.” We have made clear that we oppose the military offensive by Khalifa Haftar's forces ,” he said in a statement.
Pompeo stressed that there was ” no military solution to the Libya conflict ,” and recommended all parties to” urgently de-escalate the situation .”
Despite the clashes, Ghassan Salame, the UN special envoy for Libya, claimed that attempts were still being made to hold the national conference on Libya's future in Ghadames on 14 -1 6 April.
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