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BENGHAZI/TRIPOLI: East Libyan forces battled to advance into a final area of Benghazi controlled by their opponents late Tuesday, while at least five people including a child were killed when a shell landed on a beach near Mitiga airport in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, the Health Ministry said.
“The casualties are the result of clashes on Tuesday between a security force and outlaws who fired a shell that fell on a beach in front of Mitiga airport,” Abdulsalam Ashour, a deputy interior minister in Libya’s UN-backed government, told Libya Al-Ahrar TV channel.
At least 18 people were injured, according to reports from Tripoli hospitals. Fighting resumed on Wednesday morning, causing the suspension of flights at Mitiga.
Some reports said the shell was fired during a revenge attack against members of one of the capital’s many armed factions.
Pictures posted on social media showed plastic furniture strewn on the sand under strings of outdoor lights.
Tripoli is home to a patchwork of armed groups, some of which share control of Mitiga and the surrounding area.
They occasionally clash in turf wars over the control of smuggling businesses and localized disputes.
The beach lies across the other side of a coastal road from the airport in central Tripoli. It is popular with families trying to escape the heat on summer evenings.
Meanwhile, Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) said it was close to concluding a three-year campaign for control of Libya’s second city, having surrounded rival fighters in a strip of the seafront district of Sabri little more than 2 km wide.
He said that forces battled to advance into a final area of Benghazi, clearing mines and roadblocks and targeting snipers with cover from tank rounds. The campaign has been halting, with the LNA suffering high casualties even after gaining the upper hand early last year.
A medical source said at least 17 troops had been killed and at least 50 wounded in fighting since Monday. The LNA said it had killed 19 of its opponents.
“The special forces and supporting units from the army advanced today and tightened the grip on the terrorist groups on the Sabri front, gaining control over important sites,” said special forces spokesman Milad Al-Zawi. He said one of the sites was a building that contained a large number of snipers.
Parts of Benghazi have been left in ruins since Haftar launched his “Dignity Operation” against militants and other opponents in May 2014.
Many of the buildings in Sabri and the neighboring historic neighborhood of Souq Al-Hout have been wrecked by street fighting, shelling and airstrikes. Much of the area was heavily mined.
Three years ago Libya split into two broad and shifting rival alliances based in the east and west of the country, loyal to competing governments, worsening the turmoil that followed a 2011 uprising that ousted veteran ruler Muammar Qaddafi.