BENGHAZI STRONGMAN’S TROOPS STOPPED EN ROUTE TO TRIPOLI
TRIPOLI— Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar ordered his troops to march on Tripoli on Thursday but they were pushed back from a key checkpoint less than 30 kilometers from the capital on Friday.
Libyan militias around Tripoli vowed to stop Haftar, who leads the self-styled Libya National Army out of the eastern city of Benghazi, from seizing Tripoli, the seat of the UNrecognized unity government, and raised prospects of renewed civil war.
Western Libyan response
The militias from the western cities of Zawiya and Misarata posted on social media early on Friday that they’re mobilizing against Haftar, hours after he ordered his fighters to march on Tripoli.
“We are the revolutionaries and the elders … we declare we are on full mobilization and war,” they posted.
Haftar’s troops briefly captured the checkpoint late on Thursday but the Tripoli Protection Force, an alliance of progovernment militias in the capital, recaptured the checkpoint after a brief exchange of gunfire.
Dozens of Haftar’s troops 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 be verified.
Operation ‘Ouadi Doum II’
The alliance said it had named its operation “Ouadi Doum II” after an airbase in northern Chad where Libyan forces commanded by Haftar, then still loyal to slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi, suffered a major defeat at the hands of the French air force in 1986.
Haftar, who was once backed by the United States, has remained a deeply controversial figure since he returned from the United States after the revolution, with his critics accusing him of seeking to establish a new dictatorship with the support of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
UN action
The advance by Haftar’s forces on Thursday, which came as the United Nations prepared to convene talks aimed at holding 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.
Libya has been in chaos since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, led by the United States, United Kingdom and France, launched attacks to oust Gadhafi in 2011.