Libya clashes death toll rises to 32, and 159 wounded: ministry

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Updated 28 August 2022
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Libya clashes death toll rises to 32, and 159 wounded: ministry

  • Small arms fire and explosions rocked several districts of the capital
  • Six hospitals were hit and ambulances were unable to reach areas affected by the clashes

TRIPOLI: Clashes between backers of Libya’s rival governments killed at least 32 people, the health ministry said Sunday in a new toll, after a battle that sparked fears of a major new conflict.
Armed groups had exchanged fire that damaged several hospitals and set buildings on fire starting Friday evening, but a cautious calm had set in by Saturday evening.

Six hospitals were hit and ambulances were unable to reach areas affected by the clashes, the ministry had said earlier, condemning “war crimes.”

The two rival administrations vying for control of the North African country and its vast oil resources — one based in the capital, the other approved by a parliament in the country’s east — exchanged blame.

The UN’s Libya mission called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities,” citing “ongoing armed clashes including indiscriminate medium and heavy shelling in civilian-populated neighborhoods.”




Small arms fire and explosions rocked several districts of the capital. (AFP)

The US ambassador to Libya, Richard Norland, said in a statement that Washington “condemns” the surge in violence, urging an “immediate cease-fire and UN-facilitated talks between the conflicting parties.”

News agency Lana said actor Mustafa Baraka had been killed in one of the neighborhoods hit by fighting, parking anger and mourning on social media.

The Government of National Unity (GNU) of Abdulhamid Dbeibah said fighting had broken out after negotiations to avoid bloodshed in the western city collapsed.

Dbeibah’s government, installed as part of a United Nations-led peace process following a previous round of violence, is challenged by a rival government led by former interior minister Fathi Bashagha.

Bashagha, who is backed by Libya’s parliament and eastern-based military strongman Khalifa Haftar, says the GNU’s mandate has expired.

But he has so far been unable to take office in Tripoli, as Dbeibah has insisted on only handing power to an elected government.

Dbeibah’s government accused Bashagha of “carrying out his threats” to seize Tripoli by force.

Dbeibah’s GNU said negotiations had been underway to “hold elections at the end of the year to resolve the political crisis,” but that Bashagha had “walked out at the last moment.”

Bashagha denied such talks had taken place, and accused Dbeibah’s “illegitimate” administration of “clinging to power.”

Local media reported later Saturday that a group of pro-Bashagha militias that were making their way to the capital from Misrata had turned back.

Emadeddin Badi, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, warned that the violence could quickly escalate.

“Urban warfare has its own logic, it’s harmful both to civilian infrastructure and to people, so even if it isn’t a long war, this conflict will be very destructive as we have already seen,” he told AFP.

He added that the fighting could strengthen Haftar and those close to him.

“They stand to benefit from western Libya divisions and have a better negotiating position once the dust settles.”

Meanwhile Badi said on Twitter: “It will be lost on no one that the GNU is more concerned with entrenching itself in Tripoli than with protecting any Tripolitan constituency.”

“The same is valid for the parallel government and its allies.”

Oussama Ali, a spokesman for Tripoli’s ambulance service, told Al-Ahrar television that an unknown number of civilians had been wounded but that his service was “having difficulties moving around.”

Bashagha was appointed in February by the parliament, which was elected in 2014 and is based in the eastern city of Tobruk, but he has been unable to impose his authority in Tripoli.

Initially ruling out the use of violence, the former interior minister has since hinted that he could resort to force.

Last week, he called on “Libyan men of honor” to drop their support for Dbeibah’s “obsolete and illegitimate” administration.

Last month, clashes between rival groups in Tripoli left 16 people dead, including a child.

It was the deadliest violence to hit the Libyan capital since Haftar’s ill-fated attempt to seize it by force in 2019 and 2020.

With AP and AFP


Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments

Updated 05 April 2025
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Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments

  • Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year, Aboul Gheit said in a statement

CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and Lebanon through irresponsible military provocations, in “flagrant disregard for international legal norms.”

In a statement, Aboul Gheit lamented that global inaction has further emboldened the Zionist state.

“(T)he wars waged by Israel on the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria have entered a new phase of complete recklessness, deliberately violating signed agreements, invading countries, and killing more civilians,” said the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

He said Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year. 

Aboul Gheit suggested that Israel’s actions were driven by narrow domestic agendas at the expense of civilian lives and regional peace.

“It seems that the Israeli war machine does not want to stop as long as the occupation leaders insist on facing their internal crises by exporting them abroad, and this situation has become clear to everyone,” he said.

As per the Gaza Ministry of Health’s count last week, more than 50,000 people have been killed and over 113,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories in retaliation against the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel.

In Lebanon, war monitors have said at least 3,961 people were killed and at least 16,520, wounded in Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from October 8, 2023, to November 26, 2024.

Syria’s new government accused Israel on April 3 of mounting a deadly destabilization campaign after a wave of strikes on military targets, including an airport, and a ground incursion killed 13 people, in the southern province of Daraa. 


Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres

Updated 05 April 2025
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Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres

Damascus: Syria’s government said late Friday it was “closely following” the findings of a new Amnesty International report urging an investigation into sectarian massacres last month.
Amnesty called on the Syrian government in a report on Thursday to ensure accountability for the massacres targeting the Alawite minority, saying they may constitute war crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those responsible.
In a statement on Friday, the government said it had been “following closely the Amnesty report” and its “preliminary findings.”
“It is up to the Independent National Commission for Investigation and Fact-Finding to evaluate them, in accordance with the mandate, independence, and broad powers granted to it by presidential decree,” it said.
The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.
The government on Friday complained the report failed to note “the broader context of the events.”
It said the violence began with a “premeditated assault” by the “remnants of the previous regime, targeting army and internal security personnel.”
In the ensuing chaos, “acts of retaliation and serious violations occurred,” it said, vowing that these would be investigated and a report issued within a month.


Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq

Updated 05 April 2025
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Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq

  • Organization calls for greater effort to reduce contamination that spans 2,100 sq. km.
  • More than 80 casualties recorded since 2023

LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to pose a severe threat in Iraq, contaminating an estimated 2,100 sq. km.

In a statement issued to coincide with the International Day for Mine Awareness, the organization said landmines from past conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War and the 2014–17 battle against Daesh, remained a major hazard.

The contamination had resulted in civilian casualties, forced displacement, restricted farmland access and slowed reconstruction efforts, it said.

Between 2023 and 2024, the ICRC recorded 78 casualties from landmines and remnants of war in Iraq. Earlier this year, three students were killed in an explosion in Abu Al-Khasib, Basra.

The ICRC has appealed for greater efforts to reduce contamination and support mine-affected communities. Clearance operations continue in cooperation with national authorities and humanitarian partners.

The call for action comes at a time when several NATO member states, namely Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, have signaled their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. They cited the growing military threat from Russia as the reason for reconsidering the ban.

Meanwhile, the US, previously the largest funder of global mine clearance efforts, has cut back support due to a foreign aid review under the Trump administration.

Washington had contributed over $300 million annually, covering 40 percent of total international mine action funding, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor report, which led to major clearance efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Laos.

A State Department official said last month that the US had restarted some global humanitarian demining programs but provided no details.


Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages

Updated 04 April 2025
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Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages

  • “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives,” said Abu Obeida

GAZA CITY: Hamas on Friday said Israel’s offensive in Gaza was creating a “highly dangerous” situation for the hostages held there, warning that half of the living captives were in areas where the army had ordered evacuations.
“Half of the living Israeli (hostages) are located in areas that the Israeli occupation army has requested to be evacuated in recent days,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement. “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives.”


Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

Updated 04 April 2025
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Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

  • The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh
  • The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month

ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in the Syrian Arab Republic’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.