UN to probe car bombing

THE UN plans to investigate a car bombing in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi last week which killed three members of the UN Support Mission in Libya (Unsmil) after their convoy was targeted.

UN secretary-general spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, confirmed that the UN would appoint an internal probe into the attack.

In addition to killing the three UN staffers, one from Libya, one from Fiji and one from Jamaica, the car bomb also killed two other people.

Dujarric said in a statement that UN secretary-general António Guterres had condemned in the strongest terms the car bombing and emphasised that those behind the attack should be identified and held accountable.

To date there is uncertainty as to whether anybody is claiming responsibility for the car bombing and trying to establish these details will be part of the UN investigation.

Meanwhile, despite a reduction in fighting around Tripoli following a two-day truce organised by Unsmil to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha, fighting has resumed.

Militias allied with Tripoli’s UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) shelled renegade General Khalifa Hafter’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) forces in the southern and eastern outskirts of the capital after the latter had carried out air strikes on the southern and eastern suburbs of Tripoli.

The LNA, which supports the rival House of Representative government based in Tobruk in the east, invaded the capital at the beginning of April in an attempt to overthrow the GNA and its supporters as the two rival governments continue to jockey for power of the oil-rich North African country. |