(Tripoli) Violent clashes with heavy artillery erupted in the night from Thursday to Friday between two army units in a southern suburb of Tripoli, according to the military command of the Libyan capital.
The fighting between the 444th Brigade, an elite unit of the armed forces to “support member to stability,” a safe established in January by former Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj unit, said the military commander of Tripoli, Abdelbaset Marouane, in a video message posted on Friday on the Facebook page of the military zone of Tripoli.
The authorities are not reported in the immediate victims, but the 444th Brigade said on his Facebook page that one of its officers was killed during the clashes that continued until Friday morning.
By order of Marouane commander, members of “the body to support stability” led an assault shortly after midnight against the barracks al-Tekbali, headquarters of the 444th Brigade, accused of having “ceased to obey military orders”, according to the military command in Tripoli.
The sound of heavy artillery fighting was heard throughout the capital.
On Friday morning, columns of smoke were still visible in the perimeter of the barracks, said a resident of the Salaheddine district, where the barracks is located, contacted by phone by AFP.
For his part, Mohamad al-Manfi, head of the Presidential Council and supreme commander of the armies, ordered “all the forces” involved in the fighting to “cease them immediately and return to their barracks without delay”.
“The repetition of such incidents is no longer tolerated,” he warned on his Facebook page, threatening with “criminal prosecution those who refuse to comply with these instructions”.
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya has expressed “its deep concern” at the fighting.
In a statement, she called on “the competent authorities to assume their responsibilities by ensuring the protection of civilians and exercising control over their respective units”.
After the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, Libya sank into chaos, marked in recent years by the existence of rival powers in the East and the West against a backdrop of foreign interference.
Despite the end of the fighting in 2020 and the formation of a government in March, divisions quickly resurfaced, with legislative and presidential elections scheduled for December.
