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Benghazi falls to Islamist rebels as evacuations continue
The Islamic hard-liners’ announcement in Benghazi marked a defeat for the forces of renegade General Khalifa Hafter, who for months has pursued a self-declared campaign to stamp out armed militant groups
Khalifa Hafter, a former general in Gaddafi’s army has been launching attacks against Islamists in Benghazi, where radical militias are demanding the imposition of Islamic law, or Sharia
Fighting in Libya escalated Thursday as Islamic militias claimed to control the country’s second-largest city, Benghazi, while foreigners and UN workers continued their exodus in what increasingly is looking like a full-blown civil war.
Benghazi’s fall came after the US, the UK and other countries ordered their diplomats to evacuate Tripoli in recent days as militants attacked the Libyan capital, leaving behind a terrified populace and rapidly dwindling services. An intense fire at a massive fuel depot has been raging out of control for days in the city, prompting fears of widespread toxic pollution.
Fighting in Tripoli started two weeks ago, when Islamic militants from Misrata, a city about 130 miles east of Tripoli, attacked the airport and a military compound that belonged to local militias. The Misrata fighters are part of the Libya Dawn Revolutionaries, who claim to be liberating Tripoli from forces who fought for dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was deposed and killed in the 2011 revolution.
Armed groups claimed to have taken control of Libya's second largest city, Benghazi, after defeating units loyal to a renegade general, taking over their barracks and seizing tanks, rockets and hundreds of boxes of ammunition.
The main police headquarters was on Thursday still smouldering after it was hit by shelling a day earlier, and smoke rose from the barracks of al-Saiqa soldiers loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, once the strongest security body in the city until it was overrun earlier this week.
The armed groups' sweep through Benghazi was a heavy reversal for Haftar, who for months had led his loyalists in a self-declared campaign to stamp out "terrorists" and "extremists".
His forces now appeared to only hold the airport on the city's edges.
Those opposing him belong to a newly-formed umbrella group called Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries, made up of multiple armed factions.
Among the factions is Ansar al-Sharia, the group accused by the US of leading a September 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic facility in the city that killed the ambassador and three other Americans.
"We are the only force on the ground in Benghazi,'' a commander of one of the coalition's factions told the AP news agency on Thursday.
He said the coalition's fighters had driven all fighters loyal to Haftar out the city, and congratulated his followers on their "victory and conquest".
The Shura Council was formed after US troops abducted a top commander, Ahmed Abu-Khatala, and accused him of involvement in the attack on the US embassy.
On July 14, the coalition said it took over one of the biggest army barracks in eastern Libya, called Barracks 319. Over the past week, they took control of more than five other barracks in Benghazi, including the Saiqa camp.
