Battle rages for Libyan capital

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A warplane attacked Tripoli’s lone working airport on Monday as eastern forces advancing on the Libyan capital disregarded international appeals for a truce in the latest of a cycle of warfare.

Casualties were mounting in fighting threatening to disrupt oil supplies, fuel migration to Europe and wreck UN plans for an election to end rivalries between parallel administrations in the country’s east and west.

The eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of Khalifa Haftar – a former general in Gaddafi’s army – said 19 soldiers died in recent days as they closed in on the internationally recognised government in Tripoli.

A spokesman for the Tripoli-based Health Ministry said fighting in the south of the capital killed at least 25 people, including fighters and civilians, and wounded 80.

Mitiga airport, in an eastern suburb, was bombed and closed authorities said. UN envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, condemned the airstrike as a “a serious violation of humanitarian law”.

A spokesman for the LNA confirmed the strike, saying his force had not targeted civilian planes, only a MiG parked at Mitiga.

The closure left Misrata airport, east down the coast, as the closest option for Tripoli residents.

Haftar’s LNA, which backs the eastern administration in Benghazi, took the oil-rich south of Libya earlier this year before advancing through largely unpopulated desert regions toward Tripoli.

Seizing the capital is a much bigger challenge. The LNA conducted airstrikes on the south of the city as it seeks to advance from a disused former international airport.

Witnesses said the LNA lost control of the old airport and withdrew from positions on the airport road. Forces allied to the Tripoli administration were seen in the airport, while clashes with the eastern forces raged to the south, a Reuters reporter and residents said.

On Sunday, LNA forces moved from the airport, coming as close as 11 km from the city centre before retreating, residents said.

MACHINE GUNS ON PICKUPS

The government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj (59) is seeking to block the LNA with the help of allied armed groups who rushed to Tripoli from Misrata in pickup trucks fitted with machine guns.

A Reuters correspondent in the city centre heard gunfire in the southern distance.

Serraj has run Tripoli since 2016 as part of a UN-brokered deal boycotted by Haftar.

UN envoy Salame met Serraj in Tripoli to discuss “ways the UN can assist with this critical and difficult juncture” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

Dujarric said 3,400 people were displaced by violence in and around Tripoli, emergency services were blocked from casualties and civilians and electricity lines were damaged.

“We’re calling for a temporary humanitarian truce to allow provision of emergency services and a voluntary passage of civilians, including wounded, from the areas of conflict,” Dujarric said.

The violence jeopardises a UN plan for an April 14-16 conference to plan elections and end anarchy prevailing since the Western-backed toppling of Gaddafi.

As well as the United Nations, the European Union, United States and G7 bloc all urge a ceasefire, a halt to Haftar’s advance and return to negotiations.

Haftar casts himself as a foe of extremism but is viewed by opponents as a new dictator in the mould of Gaddafi, whose four-decade rule was marked by torture, disappearances and assassinations.

MIGRANTS AND MILITANTS

Since NATO-backed rebels ousted Gaddafi, Libya has been a transit point for migrants trekking across the Sahara in hope of reaching Europe by sea.

Migrants and refugees in detention are vulnerable in the current fighting, said aid agencies MSF (Doctors without Borders) and the International Rescue Committee.

The LNA has 85,000 men including soldiers paid by the central government  it hopes to inherit. Its elite Saiqa (Lightning) force, numbers some 3,500, while Haftar’s sons have well-equipped troops, LNA sources say.

Analysts say Haftar swelled his ranks with Salafist fighters and tribesmen as well as Chadians and Sudanese, claims dismissed by the LNA.

France, which has close links to Haftar, said it had no prior warning of his push for Tripoli, a diplomatic source said.

France established close relations with Haftar under the Socialist government of former President Francois Hollande and his defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

When President Emmanuel Macron named Le Drian his foreign minister, Paris increased support for Haftar, in close alignment with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see him as a bulwark against Islamists and support him militarily, according to UN reports.

France’s stance created tensions with Italy, which sought a leading role to end turmoil in its former colony.

Serraj received a phone call from Macron on Monday, the Tripoli-based government said, with security developments discussed.