Fighting around Tripoli resumed on Tuesday night after a two days temporary ceasefire as the Libyan National Army (LNA) said it would not extend the cease-fire with the Government of National Accord, reported Yahoo News.
The two parties observed a two-day truce, proposed by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which began Sunday, but each side accused the other of violating the agreement shortly after it began.
Commander Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army carried out airstrikes overnight on the southern outskirts of Tripoli, the Libyan officials reported. The strikes focused on the road linking the city center with a shuttered old airport that Hafter’s forces took back in April and the neighborhoods of Wadi el-Rabie, Khallat el-Fujan, and Suq al-Jumaa.
In response, militias allied to the UN-backed government in Tripoli also shelled Haftar’s forces in the area.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Notably, authorities at the Mitiga airport suspended flights for several hours on Sunday after reporting that a shell fell just meters (yards) away from the runway. The Tripoli militias blamed Hafter’s forces for the shelling.
The LNA, led by Field Marshal Haftar, has been fighting to take control of the capital and overthrow the government since April. The fighting has killed over 1,100 people and displaced more than 100,000 civilians.
In related news, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Omar Maiteeq told The Washington Times that the United States government should be doing more to exert power and diplomatic influence toward ending his country’s brutal and destabilizing civil war. He said that only the U.S. has the power to pressure the oil-rich African nation’s warring factions and their foreign supporters, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, to the bargaining table.
