Militias clashed in several neighborhoods of Tripoli during the night of Monday and the morning of Tuesday August 15, witnesses on the spot describe what they describe as “the worst violence that the Libyan capital has seen this year” between rival factions for control of the region.
Thick black smoke still hangs over parts of the city early Tuesday and the sound of heavy weapons echoes through the streets, according to footage posted to social media and local media in Tripoli reporting fierce fighting in different districts of the capital.
Clashes between GUN elite groups
These clashes, this time between the “444th Brigade” and the Special Deterrence Forces, which had both supported the Interim Government of National Unity (GUN) during the brief battles of last year, put a de facto end to the truce officially in effect, a period of a few months of relative calm in Tripoli that began in early 2023.
When the clashes broke out on Monday evening, the special deterrent force controlling Mitiga Airport in the suburbs of Tripoli arrested the commander of the 444th brigade, Mahmoud Hamza, as he was trying to travel, a source said. within the same brigade.
In Tunisia, travelers were immediately informed by airlines and airport sources that flights to and from Mitiga were halted and then diverted to Misrata, about 180km east of Tripoli. Clashes erupted near Mitiga late Monday and early Tuesday according to Reuters. “ We have been hearing heavy gunfire since early morning. My family lives in the district of Khalat Furjan, about 7km away, and they also hear the clashes ” reports a resident of the capital who also indicates that these factions have blocked important arteries with burning tires.
The provisional toll is a few dozen injured. Medical teams have been dispatched to the scene to evacuate those trapped in the conflict zones.
In April 2023, the UN Security Council recommended elections the same year, “the only way out of the political impasse for Libya”, according to the Special Representative for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily. Optimistic, he had declared that “a new dynamic is at work in Libya which hoped for presidential and legislative elections before the end of the year, “on the basis of a solid constitutional framework”. An optimism is less and less topical as clashes resume in the heart of the capital and the nerve center of Libyan power.
