Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Gunmen kill children on way to get shots
CAIRO — Gunmen in Libya killed two women and three children of the same family while they were driving on a highway near the capital, Tripoli, less than a week after an airstrike slammed into a house killing at least three civilians, a health official said Thursday.
The city has been the scene of fighting between rival militias since April. A U.N.-supported but weak government holds the capital, but the self-styled Libyan National Army — which is associated with a rival government in the country’s east — is trying to seize it.
Abdel Rahman al-Tamimi, his wife, sister and three children were traveling Wednesday evening to the capital from their hometown of Aziziya, south of the city, when unknown militants opened fire on their car, said Malek Merset, a health spokesman with the U.N.-backed government. The family was headed to the capital, where the children, ages 3 to 6, were expected to receive vaccination shots, Merset said.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the attack. However, Libyan National Army spokesman Ahmed al-Mesmari blamed the attack on militias allied with the Tripoli-based internationally recognized government.
Earlier this week, the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord held the Libyan National Army responsible for the shelling of a civilian residence that killed at least three civilians and the wounding of two, including children. The group denied the accusation saying that it targeted a military camp that the Tripoli militias used as an “operations room.”