Libyan militia fire rockets into affluent Tripoli residential district

By Heba al-Shibani and Ayman al-Warfalli

TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI Libya (Reuters) – Libyan militiamen fired rockets into an affluent district of Tripoli early on Tuesday, moving a battle with a rival armed faction closer to the centre of the capital after fighters on one side came under air attack.

Rebel groups who united to topple Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 have since turned their guns on each other, spreading anarchy in oil-producing Libya and raising fears it may become a failed state destabilising the wider North and West African region.

An air force controlled by renegade General Khalifa Haftar were responsible for strikes on Islamist-leaning militia in Tripoli on Monday, one of his commanders said, after weeks of fighting for control of the capital and its airport.

Hours later after nightfall, unidentified militiamen fired Grad rockets into the Hay Andalus and Gargaresh districts, among the most well-to-do in Tripoli, killing three people, residents said. A health ministry official had no casualty figures.

The neighbourhoods, home to the Libyan bourse, elegant cafes and foreign brand outlets such as Nike or Marks & Spencer, had been buzzing with shoppers until recently.

Shelling could be heard also in other parts of the Mediterranean coastal capital after a morning break on Tuesday, residents said. No more details were immediately available.

The air attacks escalated a struggle between Islamist and more moderate militias as well as between forces from different cities all vying for power and spoils in the OPEC-member nation.

Tripoli has largely slipped out of control of the government with senior officials working from Tobruk in the far east, where the new parliament has based itself to escape street fighting in Libya’s two biggest cities Tripoli and Benghazi.

PUBLIC INSECURITY

Libya’s central government lacks a functioning national army and relies on militias for public security. But while militias get state salaries and wear uniforms, they report in practice to their own commanders and towns such as Misrata or Zintan.

The situation in Tripoli has been exacerbated by a separate showdown between Haftar’s forces and Islamist militia in the eastern port city Benghazi.

Explosions shook a Benghazi suburb where Haftar’s forces and Islamists have been fighting since Monday, a Reuters reporter in the area said. Haftar and regular army forces have been trying to wrest back an army camp overran by Islamist militants earlier this month.

At least three people have been killed and eight wounded since Monday, a medic at a local hospital said.

Neither the Zintan nor Misrata militia is believed to have warplanes, while the Libyan state’s jet fighters were destroyed or damaged during the 2011 civil war in which NATO warplanes backed up the anti-Gaddafi uprising.

Western powers have said they had no role in Monday’s air strikes.

Some Tripoli residents, fed up with daily factional fighting that has disrupted power and food supplies, hope that NATO will intervene again in Libya.

On Sunday, the United Nations Mission in Libya bemoaned the lack of response to “repeated international appeals and (our) own efforts for an immediate ceasefire”. The new U.N. special envoy, Bernardino Leon is due to start his job on Sept. 1 but said he might travel to Tripoli as early as this week.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Elumami and Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Mark Heinrich)