TRIPOLI — Flights resumed and
shops reopened in
Libya’s capital Tripoli on Sunday after clashes between
backers of rival governments killed at least 32 people and sparked fears of
major new conflict.
اضافة اعلان
Armed groups had exchanged fire that damaged several hospitals and
set buildings on fire starting Friday evening, the worst fighting in the Libyan
capital since a landmark 2020 ceasefire.
A cautious calm had set in by Saturday evening, an AFP
correspondent reported, and the health ministry said Sunday morning that 32
people had been killed and 159 wounded during the clashes.
The fighting came after months of mounting tensions between
backers of
Abdulhamid Dbeibah and Fathi Bashagha, whose rival administrations
are vying for control of the North African country which has seen more than a
decade of violence since a 2011 uprising.
Dbeibah’s administration, installed in the capital as part of a
UN-led peace process last year, has so far prevented Bashagha from taking
office there, arguing that the next administration should be the product of
elections.
Bashagha was appointed by Libya’s eastern-based parliament earlier
this year and is backed by powerful eastern military chief Khalifa Haftar,
whose 2019 attempt to seize the capital by force turned into a year-long civil
war.
Bashagha, a former interior minister, had initially ruled out the
use of violence to take power in Tripoli but subsequently hinted that he could
resort to force.
Libya plunged into chaos following the 2011 overthrow and killing
of dictator Muammar Gadhafi in a
NATO-backed uprising, with myriad armed groups
and foreign powers moving to fill the power vacuum.
Certain armed groups seen as neutral in the latest crisis moved to
back Dbeibah this weekend to push back Bashagha’s second attempt to enter the
capital.
Both sides exchanged blame on Saturday while world powers appealed
for calm.
Shifting
sands
The
UN’s Libya mission called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities”,
deploring “indiscriminate medium and heavy shelling in civilian-populated
neighborhoods”.
On Saturday evening, Dbeibah posted a video
of himself surrounded by bodyguards and greeting fighters supporting his
administration.
Wearing a blue shirt and accompanied by his
personal guard, he shook hands and took selfies with supporters.
“We won’t leave this country to the
scoundrels,” he said in the video posted on his Twitter account under the title
“end of the aggression”.
He said on Sunday he would create two
committees to survey the damage from the fighting.
Dbeibah’s
Government of National Unity (GNU)
said fighting had broken out after negotiations to avoid bloodshed in the
western city collapsed.
Bashagha denied such talks had taken place
and accused Dbeibah’s “illegitimate” administration of “clinging to power”.
Local media reported late Saturday that a
group of pro-Bashagha militias that had been making their way to the capital
from Misrata later turned back.
The fighting prompted several airlines to
cancel flights in and out of the only working airport in the capital, and high
school examinations set for the end of August were postponed.
But flights resumed and shops reopened on
Sunday morning, while the University of Tripoli announced that exams set for
Monday would go ahead as originally planned, annulling an earlier postponement.
On Saturday evening Dbeibah ordered the
arrest of anyone involved in the “attack on Tripoli”, both civilian and
military.
A pro-GNU force from Misrata — the hometown
of both Dbeibah and Bashagha — said Sunday it had arrested several involved in
the attack.
But analysts said the crisis was far from
resolved, with the capital controlled by a multitude of armed groups with
shifting alliances described by analyst Wolfram Lacher as “a never-ending
story”.
“The armed groups that found themselves on
the same side in yesterday’s Tripoli fighting will tomorrow clash over turf,
positions and budgets,” he wrote on Twitter.
“The factions that were pro-Dbeibah
yesterday will challenge him tomorrow.”
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