Haftar’s army repulses raid on major air base in Libya

benghazi — An armed group on Thursday a major air base in southern Libya held by eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar on Thursday after he moved most of his forces north to try to seize the capital Tripoli, officials said.

The eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) forces managed to repel the assault on the Tamanhint air base near Sabha, the main city in Libya’s south, two eastern military officials said.

An LNA soldier was killed at the base’s main gate, one official said, describing the attackers as “militia”.

It was unclear whether they were linked to the internationally recognised government in Tripoli, in northwestern Libya, that is fighting Haftar-led forces allied to a parallel government based in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Haftar’s LNA began its thrust on Tripoli two weeks ago.

Haftar has concentrated his forces near Tripoli, using mainly the Jufrah air base but also Tamanhint to fly in materiel and send it on by road up north towards the Mediterranean coast.

The LNA seized Libya’s sprawling south with its two main oilfield earlier this year, although tribesmen with flexible loyalties remain strong in the sparsely populated desert region.

Over the weekend the LNA dispatched units to the eastern oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider in case of any attack on them by forces aligned with the Tripoli-based government.

International powers are aghast at the flare-up in Libya, which has scuttled a UN peace plan, but have been unable to present a united front to enable steps to defuse the crisis.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation said that the fighting between Libya’s rival factions for control of the country’s capital this month killed 205 people so far, the said, announcing it would deploy medical specialists, including surgeons, to treat the wounded. —