Libya: Continued clashes between government forces and Haftar’s militia

Clashes continued between Libyan government forces and the militias of retired Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar yesterday south of the capital Tripoli.

Witnesses told Anadolu Agency that the clashes are still ongoing, but at a lesser scale than they were when they first erupted on Saturday. They described Saturday’s fighting as “extremely intense, as plumes of smoke are still billowing over the areas where the fights took place.”

An Anadolu Agency correspondent reported that the sounds of heavy artillery are still shaking the capital.

On Saturday, Chairman of the Presidential Council, Fayez Al-Sarraj, described Haftar’s attacks on Tripoli as “insane acts perpetrated by a terrorist war criminal leading to killing dozens of civilians.”

Libya: Attacks give government ‘no choice but to respond’ 

Al-Sarraj considered these attacks as “proof of Haftar’s weakness and despair after successive defeats, in indication of the near end of his bloody ambition to seize power.”

He denounced international condemnations of Haftar’s “crimes”, saying:

We are no longer interested in the international community’s hesitant accusations and inability to name the aggressor, hold him accountable and stop those who support him.

Haftar’s attacks came hours after the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) announced that the indiscriminate attacks carried out by the eastern forces on populated areas in Tripoli “may amount to war crimes.”