Libya lurches to battle for capital as Sarraj vows to fight

Bloomberg

Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar’s forces advanced to the outskirts of Tripoli, setting up a potential endgame for the capital as the country’s UN-backed government vowed stiff resistance.
Under attack from fighter jets, Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) fought its way towards the country’s most populous city, where battle-hardened militias that oppose him have mobilised.
Appeals for calm by global powers showed no sign of halting Haftar’s four-day offensive.
“We extended our hands in peace,” Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, who heads the internationally recognised government in Tripoli, said in a televised address. “But this assault by Haftar’s forces will be met only with decisiveness and force.”
The US and European governments are voicing alarm at the escalation, which has the potential to rattle oil markets and drag the Opec-member country into a civil war.
Group of Seven foreign ministers expressed “deepest concern” in a joint statement after a meeting in Dinard, France.
Eastern-based Haftar, whose forces swept through Libya’s south in January, ordered his troops to march on the capital. The United Nations Security Council called on Haftar’s forces to “halt all military movements,” German Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, the council president, said.
Tripoli and neighbouring Misrata are home to heavily armed militias that strongly oppose Haftar. The offensive’s timing, as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was in Libya to prepare for an April 14 political conference, shocked even Haftar’s foreign backers.
Haftar and Sarraj had been negotiating for weeks for a unity government ahead of elections that were to be decided during the April 14 conference.
Haftar had been expected to launch a show of force ahead of the talks, diplomats said, but not launch an all out assault on Tripoli.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Haftar should halt his advance. “There is no military victory,” he said at the end of a G-7 meeting.
Haftar has shown no sign of backing down. His spokesman, Ahmed al-Mismari, said the offensive would end only when Tripoli was taken.
Haftar’s forces have reached the edges of the capital, Mismari said at a news conference in Benghazi. “This is Tripoli, brothers,” he said. “Your forces are advancing in every direction.”
LNA forces came under four air strikes and incurred no losses, Mismari said.
Haftar’s forces had said they’d be welcomed in Tripoli, but Sarraj has mobilised his troops and powerful militias in Misrata have sent reinforcements to the capital.
An anti-Haftar militia in Zawiya attacked LNA troops and took dozens of prisoners, according to Libyan media that aired video of the captured soldiers.

Pullouts, jitters begin in Tripoli
Bloomberg

The US has temporarily withdrawn troops from Libya as eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar advances on the ultimate prize in the OPEC member — the capital.
Haftar’s push could redraw the political map in Libya, which sits atop Africa’s largest proven reserves of crude oil, and undermine a UN-backed reconciliation conference planned for later this month.
The US Africa Command said that supporting forces had been “temporarily relocated from the country in response to security conditions on the ground.”
“The security realities on the ground in Libya are growing increasingly complex and unpredictable,” said US Marine Corps General Thomas Waldhauser, commander, US Africa Command. “Even with an adjustment of the force, we will continue to remain agile in support of US strategy.”