Libya’s newly-elected parliament has condemned as terrorists the militia alliance which says it has captured Tripoli’s international airport.<\/p>\n
It said the alliance was now a legitimate target for the armed forces.<\/p>\n
The alliance includes Islamists and fighters from the city of Misrata.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the militia said that the new parliament was illegitimate and called for the country’s former governing body, the Islamist-dominated General National Council, to reconvene.<\/p>\n
The BBC’s Rana Jawad in Tripoli says there are uncomfirmed reports of battles continuing between rival armed groups on the outskirts of the city, and explosions can be heard.<\/p>\n
The country has been by gripped by conflict between rival militias that spearheaded the 2011 uprising against long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi. Several hundred people have died in a recent upsurge of fighting.<\/p>\n
The militia alliance – which includes some Islamist fighters and others from the city of Misrata – said it had won control of the airport despite being targeted by mystery airstrikes for a second time this week.<\/p>\n
The reported fall of the airport is a setback for the rival militia from the city of Zintan, allies of Gen Khalifa Haftar, who launched a campaign earlier this year against what he termed the “Islamist-dominated” government. They had controlled the airport for nearly three years.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards the parliament, which is based in the eastern city of Tobruk because Tripoli and Benghazi are mostly outside government control, declared the victorious militias to be “terrorist organisations”.<\/p>\n
The statement did not include criticism of the Zintan militia, which now appears to have withdrawn from Tripoli.<\/p>\n
Our correspondent says this omission suggests that the parliament has included them in some wider plan.<\/p>\n
The violence – which correspondents say is the worst since the overthrow of Col Gadaffi – has been centred around the airport and in the eastern city of Benghazi.<\/p>\n
Several hundred people are believed to have died in July and August in an upsurge of unrest.<\/p>\n
Observers have often pointed out that Libya’s complex web of militias often operate on a “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” basis.<\/p>\n
The country’s militias and political parties alike have had shifting alliances over the last two years.<\/p>\n
Our correspondent says that it is not a clear-cut Islamist versus nationalist battle because some militias are essentially fighting for their continued existence and empowerment.<\/p>\n
Thousands have fled their homes to escape the violence.<\/p>\n
More than three years after Gaddafi was overthrown and killed, Libya’s police and army remain weak in comparison with the militias who control large parts of the country.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Libya’s newly-elected parliament has condemned as terrorists the militia alliance which says it has captured Tripoli’s international airport. It said the alliance was now a legitimate target for the armed forces. The alliance includes Islamists and fighters from the city of Misrata. A spokesman for the militia said that the new parliament was illegitimate and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":41446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-41445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}