Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar has announced the "total liberation" of the country's second-largest city, Benghazi, which was overrun by jihadists three years ago. Mr Haftar does not recognise the authority of the UN-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli and instead backs a rival parliament based in Tobruk in the country's east.
"After a continuous struggle against terrorism and its agents that lasted more than three years...we announce to you the liberation of Benghazi from terrorism," Mr Haftar, in full military regalia, said in a speech broadcast on television. "Today Benghazi enters a new era of peace, security, reconciliation...and reconstruction," he said, paying homage to "a caravan of martyrs" who fell in the battle for the city.
The battle between Mr Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army and an array of Islamist militants has been part of a broader conflict since Libya slipped into turmoil following the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Mr Haftar has established military control over much of eastern Libya.
Having seized a string of key oil ports and southern air bases since last year, he has made little secret of his ambition to enter Tripoli, where he portrays his rivals as beholden to Islamists and militia rule. He has backing from foreign powers including Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and has cultivated closer ties with Russia.
Forces loyal to east Libya strongman Khalifa Haftar said Wednesday they have cornered the last jihadists in a neighborhood of second city Benghazi and vowed that victory is “imminent.” The self-styled Libyan National Army said fighting in Soug Al-Hout neighborhood was over and its soldiers had advanced into the central district of Al-Sabri where they were surrounding the last jihadists.
LNA General Abdessalam Al-Hassi told AFP the jihadists were cornered in a small part of Al-Sabri and coming under attack from air strikes as well as ground forces on three fronts. Haftar’s forces have retaken most of Benghazi since the eastern coastal city was overrun by jihadists in 2014.
Last week a medical source in the city said 44 LNA soldiers had been killed in June alone in Al-Sabri and Soug Al-Hout. Hassi said the “total liberation of Benghazi from jihadists is imminent.” A spokesman for the LNA special forces, Col. Miloud Al-Zwei, said Haftar’s forces were getting ready “to launch an assault on Al-Joumhouriya hospital and Al-Jarid market” in Al-Sabri.
Benghazi, cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed Libya’s veteran dictator Muammar Qaddafi, was overrun by several jihadist groups. These include the Revolutionary Shoura Council of Benghazi, an alliance of Islamist militias among them suspected members of the Daesh and the Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Al-Sharia.
On the other hand, Five people have been killed and 32 injured after a shell fired by militia in the Libyan capital of Tripoli fell on unsuspecting sunbathers on a beach not far from the city’s airport.
The Ministry of Health from Tripoli’s U.N.-backed government confirmed in a statement the death toll included two adult women, two girls and young boy. All five were visiting the beach Tuesday in eastern Tripoli, where it is common for residents to cool themselves on hot summer evenings.
Deputy Interior Minister Abdulsalam Ashour told Libya’s local Al-Ahrar television channel the casualties were the result of clashes between security forces at Tripoli’s Mitiga International Airport and “outlaws.”