TRIPOLI: Clashes between armed groups erupted overnight in Tripoli, according to local media reports, the latest violence to hit the Libyan capital.
Gunfire and explosions were overhead around 1 a.m. Saturday (2300 GMT) in the city.
The fighting, with light and heavy weapons, occurred in the El Jebs district in the city’s south, media reports said.
Tensions have been rising for months in Libya as two prime ministers vie for power, raising fears of renewed conflict two years after a landmark truce ended a ruinous attempt by eastern military chief Khalifa Haftar to seize Tripoli by force.
Saturday’s clashes were between armed groups loyal to Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, head of the unity government based in Tripoli, and others following his rival Fathi Bashagha, named in February as prime minister by a parliament based in Libya’s east after he made a pact with Haftar.
The fighting ended when another group called the 444 Brigade intervened to mediate, according to Libyan media. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Bashagha has failed in his attempts to oust Dbeibah, who has repeatedly asserted he will only hand over power to an elected government.
Tensions between armed groups loyal to the rival leaders have increased in recent months in Tripoli. On July 22, fighting in the heart of the city left 16 dead and about 50 wounded.
Dbeibah’s Government of National Unity was appointed as part of a United Nations-backed peace process to end more than a decade of violence in the North African country.
The transitional government had a mandate to lead the country to elections last December, but they never took place due to divisions over the rules and the presence of controversial candidates.
Libya has been gripped by insecurity since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, leaving a power vacuum armed groups have been wrangling for years to fill.
Libyan armed groups clash in Tripoli: reports
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Libyan armed groups clash in Tripoli: reports
- Saturday’s clashes were between armed groups loyal to PM Abdulhamid Dbeibah and his rival Fathi Bashagha
- Tensions have been rising for months in Libya as two prime ministers vie for power
Gaza ‘hell on earth’ as hospital supplies running out, warns head of Red Cross
“We are now finding ourselves in a situation that I have to describe as hell on earth ...People don’t have access to water, electricity, food, in many parts,” Mirjana Spoljaric told Reuters at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.
No new humanitarian supplies have entered the Palestinian enclave since Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks on March 2, as talks stalled on the next stage of a now broken truce. Israel resumed its military assault on March 18.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said 25,000 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the 42 days of the ceasefire and that Hamas had used the aid to rebuild its war machine, an allegation which the group has denied.
Spoljaric said supplies were running critically low.
“For six weeks, nothing has come in, so we will, in a couple of weeks’ time, run out of supplies that we need to keep the hospital going,” she said.
The World Health Organization said supplies of antibiotics and blood bags were dwindling fast. Twenty-two out of 36 hospitals in the enclave are only minimally functional, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva via video link in Jerusalem.
The Red Cross president also raised concern about the safety of humanitarian operations.
“It is extremely dangerous for the population to move, but it’s especially also dangerous for us to operate,” Spoljaric said.
In March, the bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers, including eight members of the Palestinian Red Crescent, were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza.
The UN and Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them.
The Israeli military said on Monday that an initial investigation showed that the incident occurred “due to a sense of threat” after it said it had identified six Hamas militants in the vicinity.
Spoljaric called for an immediate ceasefire in order to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas and to address grave humanitarian issues in Gaza.
Israel began its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages on a raid into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed and much of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month
ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.
The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.
The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.
Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.
After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.
Kurds made up 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.
Gaza ‘hell on earth’ as hospital supplies running out, warns head of Red Cross
- Mirjana Spoljaric says field hospital will run out of supplies within two weeks
- No new humanitarian supplies have entered Gaza since Israel blocked entry on March 2
GENEVA: The president of the Red Cross described the humanitarian situation in Gaza on Friday as “hell on earth” and warned that its field hospital will run out of supplies within two weeks.
“We are now finding ourselves in a situation that I have to describe as hell on earth ...People don’t have access to water, electricity, food, in many parts,” Mirjana Spoljaric told Reuters at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.
No new humanitarian supplies have entered the Palestinian enclave since Israel blocked the entry of aid trucks on March 2, as talks stalled on the next stage of a now broken truce. Israel resumed its military assault on March 18.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said 25,000 aid trucks had entered Gaza in the 42 days of the ceasefire and that Hamas had used the aid to rebuild its war machine, an allegation which the group has denied.
Spoljaric said supplies were running critically low.
“For six weeks, nothing has come in, so we will, in a couple of weeks’ time, run out of supplies that we need to keep the hospital going,” she said.
The World Health Organization said supplies of antibiotics and blood bags were dwindling fast. Twenty-two out of 36 hospitals in the enclave are only minimally functional, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva via video link in Jerusalem.
The Red Cross president also raised concern about the safety of humanitarian operations.
“It is extremely dangerous for the population to move, but it’s especially also dangerous for us to operate,” Spoljaric said.
In March, the bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers, including eight members of the Palestinian Red Crescent, were found buried in a mass grave in southern Gaza.
The UN and Red Crescent accused Israeli forces of killing them.
The Israeli military said on Monday that an initial investigation showed that the incident occurred “due to a sense of threat” after it said it had identified six Hamas militants in the vicinity.
Spoljaric called for an immediate ceasefire in order to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas and to address grave humanitarian issues in Gaza.
Israel began its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages on a raid into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, more than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed and much of the territory has been reduced to rubble.
Syria extends deadline for probe into killings of Alawites
- President Ahmed Al-Sharaa grants fact-finding committee three month extension to identify perpetrators
- Human rights groups say more than 1,000 civilians — mostly Alawites were killed in violence last month
BEIRUT: Syria’s presidency announced on Friday that it would extend a probe into the killings of Alawite civilians in coastal areas that left hundreds dead after clashes between government forces and armed groups loyal to former President Bashar Assad spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks.
The violence erupted on March 6 after Assad loyalists ambushed patrols of the new government, prompting Islamist-led groups to launch coordinated assaults on Latakia, Baniyas, and other coastal areas.
According to human rights groups, more than 1,000 civilians — mostly Alawites, an Islamic minority to which Assad belongs — were killed in retaliatory attacks, including home raids, executions, and arson, displacing thousands.
The sectarian violence was possibly among the bloodiest 72 hours in Syria’s modern history, including the 14 years of civil war from which the country is now emerging. The violence brought fear of a renewed civil war and threatened to open an endless cycle of vengeance, driving thousands of Alawites to flee their homes, with an estimated 30,000 seeking refuge in northern Lebanon.
On March 9, President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group, formed a fact-finding committee and gave it 30 days to report its findings and identify perpetrators. In a decree published late Thursday, Sharaa said the committee had requested more time and was granted a three-month non-renewable extension.
The committee’s spokesperson, Yasser Farhan, said in a statement on Friday that the committee has recorded 41 sites where killings took place, each forming the basis for a separate case and requiring more time to gather evidence. He said some areas remained inaccessible due to time constraints, but that residents had cooperated, despite threats from pro-Assad remnants.
In a report published on April 3, Amnesty International said its probe into the killings concluded that at least 32 of more than 100 people killed in the town of Baniyas were deliberately targeted on sectarian grounds — a potential war crime.
The rights organization welcomed the committee’s formation but stressed it must be independent, properly resourced, and granted full access to burial sites and witnesses to conduct a credible investigation. It also said the committee should be granted “adequate time to complete the investigation.”
Witnesses to the killings identified the attackers as hard-line Sunni Islamists, including Syria-based jihadi foreign fighters and members of former rebel factions that took part in the offensive that overthrew Assad. However, many were also local Sunnis, seeking revenge for past atrocities blamed on Alawites loyal to Assad.
While some Sunnis hold the Alawite community responsible for Assad’s brutal crackdowns, Alawites themselves say they also suffered under his rule.
Erdogan accuses Israel of seeking to ‘dynamite’ Syria ‘revolution’
- Turkish president says Israel is turning minorities in Syria against the government
ANTALYA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday accused Israel of sowing divisions in Syria in a bid to “dynamite” the “revolution” that toppled strongman Bashar Assad.
Turkiye is a key backer of Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the rebel coalition which ousted Assad in December.
“Israel is trying to dynamite the December 8 revolution by stirring up ethnic and religious affiliations and turning minorities in Syria against the government,” Erdogan told a diplomacy forum in the southern Mediterranean resort of Antalya.
Erdogan’s comments come as officials from Turkiye and Israel began talks this week aimed at easing tensions over Syria.
Israel has launched air strikes and ground incursions to keep Syrian forces away from its border.
“Israel is turning into a problematic country that directly threatens the stability of the region, especially with its attacks on Lebanon and Syria,” Erdogan said.
He also said Israeli strikes were denting efforts to combat the Daesh jihadist group.
