Militia advance blocked near Libya capital
TRIPOLI: Forces loyal to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar were pushed back yesterday from a key checkpoint less than 30 kilometres from Tripoli, checking their lightning advance on the capital, a security source said.
Militiamen from the coastal town of Zawiya, west of Tripoli, retook the base after a ‘short exchange of fire’, the source said on condition of anonymity.
The advance by Haftar’s forces on Thursday, which came as the United Nations ( UN) prepares to convene a conference later this month on holding delayed elections, prompted visiting UN chief Antonio Guterres to voice his ‘deep concern’.
The UN Security Council was to hold an urgent meeting on the crisis later on Friday as Western governments appealed for restraint.
Traffic was flowing normally past the checkpoint yesterday morning, an AFP correspondent reported.
Just a single armoured vehicle was seen the allegiance of its occupants was not immediately clear.
The Zawiya militia is one of dozens that have proliferated since the overthrow of veteran dictator Muammar Gaddafi in a Nato-backed uprising in 2011 and are variously aligned with the UN-backed unity government in the capital and a rival administration in the east backed by Haftar’s forces.
Most of the pro-Haftar fi ghters who briefly captured the checkpoint late on Thursday were militiamen from the rival town of Sabratha further west along the Mediterranean coast.
Dozens of them were captured and their vehicles seized, the security source said.
Pictures posted on social media of men in military uniform sitting on the ground purported to show some of those taken prisoner, but their authenticity could not immediately be verified.
The Tripoli Protection Force, an alliance of pro- government militias in the capital, said its fighters had taken part in the recapture of the checkpoint 27 kilometres to its south.