TRIPOLI — Gunmen
linked to Libyan military chief
Khalifa Haftar exchanged artillery and gun fire
overnight in the country's south, authorities and local media said Tuesday,
with medics reporting one person dead.
اضافة اعلان
The clashes come a week before the war-torn
North African country is due to hold a presidential election that observers
fear could trigger a return to conflict after a year-long ceasefire.
"A militia armed with heavy weaponry
and armored vehicles ... stole 11 four-wheel-drive vehicles from Sebha in an
armed robbery," Sebha's police force said.
It identified the attackers as members of a
group commanded by Mabruk Sahban and affiliated with Haftar, who is a candidate
in the December 24 polls and whose forces control much of Libya's south.
The stolen vehicles had been sent to Sabha
by the
interior ministry in Tripoli to help secure the election, the police
statement said.
Sahban's forces attacked a police convoy and
forced officers to drive the vehicles to Brak airbase, south of Sebha, it
added.
Sebha security forces and pro-Haftar gunmen
later clashed in central Sabha, local media reported.
Footage online apparently showed night-time
clashes with small arms in the city center.
Sebha Medical Center said in a Facebook post
that "last night due to events in the city we received two wounded people
and one dead.”
Local media said schools and public services
were closed across the city Tuesday.
Haftar had in 2019 seized much of southern
Libya including oil infrastructure, military sites and the southwestern city of
Sebha, before launching a blistering assault on capital Tripoli, 650km to the
north.
Western Libyan forces pushed him back to his
eastern stronghold a year later, but he retained an armed presence in the
south.
A ceasefire formally signed in October 2020
paved the way for a
UN-led political process to bring in an interim unity
government tasked with leading Libya until the elections -- in which Haftar is
a candidate.
Libya has been attempting to extract itself
from a decade of conflict since the 2011 revolt that toppled and killed
dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
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