SEPT. 1, 2014
CAIRO — The government of Libya said Monday that it had lost control of its ministries to a coalition of militias that had taken over the capital, Tripoli, in another milestone in the disintegration of the state.
“The government reiterates that these buildings and the public headquarters are not safe and inaccessible, because they are under the control of armed men,” the government said in a statement. It was issued from the eastern city of Tobruk, where the recently elected Parliament has convened in territory controlled by a renegade general who has tried to stage a coup d’état.
The statement indicated the emergence of two rival centers of government — one in Tripoli and the other in Tobruk — each all but powerless.
Over the last two months, the fractious militias that have dominated the country since the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi three years ago — variously local, tribal, regional, Islamist or criminal — have lined up into two warring factions. One side, operating under the name Libya Dawn, aligned with militias from the coastal city of Misurata and the Islamist factions in what fighters portrayed as a battle to prevent a counterrevolution. The other side was aligned with the renegade general, Khalifa Hifter, in the east and partisans from the mountain city of Zintan in the west, to fight what they called a battle against Islamist extremists.
A little more than a week ago, the Misurata militia and its allies won a monthlong battle for control of the Tripoli airport, which had been controlled by the Zintan-based militias since the ouster of Colonel Qaddafi in 2011. The Zintani militias, which now include hundreds of former Qaddafi fighters, fled Tripoli. That left it in the hands of the Libya Dawn coalition, mainly the Misurata militia and its Islamist allies.
That coalition has called for the return of the recently dissolved Parliament, based in Tripoli. It was widely perceived to be dominated by the coalition’s political allies. Now a small reconvened rump that backs Libya Dawn has sought to name its own prime minister, Omar el Hassi, a veteran of an Islamist insurgency under Colonel Qaddafi.
Libya Dawn supporters say the newly elected Parliament was suspect because it had chosen to meet in Tobruk, under the control of General Hifter.
But those who back the Tobruk Parliament said Libya Dawn is trying to take power by force because it lost the election: Its allies are believed to have captured a smaller share of the newly elected Parliament, although its members have not yet sorted themselves into clear political blocs.
In its statement on Monday, the Parliament in Tobruk accused the Libya Dawn coalition of effectively locking the elected government out of the capital. The ministry offices had been “besieged and broken into,” the government’s statement said, accusing unidentified “armed men” of preventing employees from entering their offices and “threatening deputy ministers.”
Residents of Tripoli said Monday that life was beginning to return to the city after a month of fighting. Businesses that had been closed were beginning to reopen, gas and electricity shortages were becoming less severe, and traffic was returning to the streets.
But the victors in the fight have also attacked and burned the homes of people accused of backing the other side; one target was the home of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni. Though initially named by the old Parliament in Tripoli, he was reappointed on Monday by the Parliament in Tobruk.
Militias aligned with Misurata and the Islamists also appear to have the upper hand in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya’s second largest. There, a coalition of mostly Islamist militias is fighting forces led by General Hifter, who has vowed to purge the Islamists.
But in recent days residents have said that the Islamist coalition had taken control of the city. The coalition in Benghazi includes the extremist brigade Ansar al-Shariah, which played a leading role in the attack on the American Mission that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens two years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment