TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Eastern Libyan forces carried out air strikes on the southern part of Tripoli on Sunday and made progress toward the city center, residents said, escalating an operation to take the capital as the United Nations failed to achieve a truce.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) force of Khalifa Haftar, which backs a parallel administration in the east, last week launched an advance on Tripoli in the west, home to the internationally recognized government.

The offensive intensifies a power struggle that has fractured the oil and gas producer since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

The LNA reached the southern outskirts of the capital on Friday and says it took the former international airport, though the Tripoli military officials deny this.

At least one warplane carried out an air strike in the area, a resident said.

“The air force took part for the first time in the military operations,” said LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari. “It conducted a very successful operation to secure the airport road (to city center),” he added.

The LNA moved up north from on the road from former airport in the district of Khalat Furgan, coming some 11 km from the city center, a resident said, adding he could see the troops as forces loyal to the Tripoli government withdrew.

The U.N. mission to Libya (UNSMIL) called on Sunday for a truce for two hours in southern Tripoli to evacuate civilians and wounded, it said in a statement without giving details.

But the true was not observed by evening, one U.N. official said.

In another sign of the situation worsening on the ground, a contingent of U.S. forces supporting the U.S. Africa Command evacuated Libya for security reasons, a U.S. statement said. It gave no details.

A member of Libyan National Army (LNA), commanded by Khalifa Haftar, is seen as he heads out of Benghazi to reinforce the troops advancing to Tripoli, in Benghazi, Libya April 7, 2019. REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori

Forces allied to the Tripoli government meanwhile announced their own operation called “Volcano of Anger” to defend the capital, a spokesman said, without giving details.

The offensive has taken the United Nations by surprise, undermining plans to find agreement on a road map for elections to resolve the protracted instability in Libya.

Lawless since Gaddafi was toppled by rebels backed by NATO air strikes, Libya has become the transit point hundreds of thousands of migrants trekking across the Sahara with the objective of reaching Europe across the Mediterranean Sea.

Haftar, 75, who casts himself as a foe of Islamist extremism but is viewed by opponents as a new dictator in the mould of Gaddafi, enjoys the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see him as a bulwark against Islamists and have supported him militarily, according to U.N. reports.

The UAE, however, has joined Western countries in expressing its deep concern about the fighting.

“No justification for LNA move on Tripoli,” UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt tweeted, adding he was watching the situation very closely and would discuss the “next steps” with the European Union on Monday.

Slideshow (9 Images)

In the past, Haftar has struck deals with armed factions outside Tripoli to advance his forces. But gaining control of Tripoli - the ultimate prize for Haftar’s eastern parallel government - would be far more complicated.

Armed groups allied to the Tripoli government have moved more machinegun-mounted pickup trucks to defend Tripoli from Misrata down the coast. Misrata is known for a spirit of resisting “old regime” figures, developed during 2011 when pro-Gaddafi forces besieged it for three months. </s> TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Eastern Libyan forces carried out air strikes on the southern part of Tripoli on Sunday and made progress towards the city centre, residents said, escalating an operation to take the capital as the United Nations failed to achieve a truce.

The Libyan National Army (LNA) force of Khalifa Haftar, which backs a parallel administration in the east, last week launched an advance on Tripoli in the west, home to the internationally recognised government.

The offensive intensifies a power struggle that has fractured the oil and gas producer since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.

The LNA reached the southern outskirts of the capital on Friday and says it took the former international airport, though the Tripoli military officials deny this.

At least one warplane carried out an air strike in the area, a resident said.

“The air force took part for the first time in the military operations,” said LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari. “It conducted a very successful operation to secure the airport road (to city centre),” he added.

The LNA moved up north from on the road from former airport in the district of Khalat Furgan, coming some 11 km from the city centre, a resident said, adding he could see the troops as forces loyal to the Tripoli government withdrew.

The U.N. mission to Libya (UNSMIL) called on Sunday for a truce for two hours in southern Tripoli to evacuate civilians and wounded, it said in a statement without giving details.

But the true was not observed by evening, one U.N. official said.

In another sign of the situation worsening on the ground, a contingent of U.S. forces supporting the U.S. Africa Command evacuated Libya for security reasons, a U.S. statement said. It gave no details.

Forces allied to the Tripoli government meanwhile announced their own operation called “Volcano of Anger” to defend the capital, a spokesman said, without giving details.

The offensive has taken the United Nations by surprise, undermining plans to find agreement on a road map for elections to resolve the protracted instability in Libya.

Lawless since Gaddafi was toppled by rebels backed by NATO air strikes, Libya has become the transit point hundreds of thousands of migrants trekking across the Sahara with the objective of reaching Europe across the Mediterranean Sea.

Haftar, 75, who casts himself as a foe of Islamist extremism but is viewed by opponents as a new dictator in the mould of Gaddafi, enjoys the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see him as a bulwark against Islamists and have supported him militarily, according to U.N. reports.

The UAE, however, has joined Western countries in expressing its deep concern about the fighting.

“No justification for LNA move on Tripoli,” UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt tweeted, adding he was watching the situation very closely and would discuss the “next steps” with the European Union on Monday.

In the past, Haftar has struck deals with armed factions outside Tripoli to advance his forces. But gaining control of Tripoli - the ultimate prize for Haftar’s eastern parallel government - would be far more complicated.

Armed groups allied to the Tripoli government have moved more machinegun-mounted pickup trucks to defend Tripoli from Misrata down the coast. Misrata is known for a spirit of resisting “old regime” figures, developed during 2011 when pro-Gaddafi forces besieged it for three months. </s> Forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar reached a security barrier just 27 kilometers from the capital Tripoli late Thursday, according to an AFP journalist.

General Abdessalem al-Hassi, head of operations for Haftar’s Libyan National Army in the eastern region, said his forces had seized the roadblock without any fighting.

Haftar’s forces announced Wednesday they were gearing up for an offensive in the west of the country to purge it of “terrorists and mercenaries”, having seized key areas of the country’s south since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, Britain on Thursday requested an urgent UN Security Council meeting on Libya after the leader of forces in the east ordered his troops to advance on Tripoli, diplomats said.

The council is expected to hold a closed-door meeting on Friday following the order from Khalifa Haftar, a key player opposed to the government in the capital. </s> A Libyan military spokesman says troops have routed Islamic militants from a key area they controlled in the eastern city of Benghazi. The official speaks for the armed forces that answer to the internationally recognized parliament based in eastern Libya.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Stars and Stripes. </s> TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya, April 8 (Reuters) - Eastern Libyan forces sought to reach the centre of Tripoli on Monday after their easy advance through desert hit a trickier urban phase, with deaths and displacements mounting and the West aghast at the threat to its peace plan.

Renewed civil war in Libya, splintered into areas of factional control since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. threatens to disrupt oil and gas supplies, trigger more migration to Europe, and allow Islamist militants to exploit the chaos.

The eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of Khalifa Haftar, a former officer in Gaddafi's army, said 19 of their soldiers had died in recent days as they closed in on the internationally recognised government in Tripoli.

The United Nations said 2,800 people were displaced by clashes and many more could flee, though some were trapped.

The LNA has made air strikes on the south of the city as it seeks to advance into the centre from the disused airport.

But the Tripoli government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, which reported 11 deaths without specifying on which side, has armed groups arriving from nearby Misrata to block the LNA.

Al-Serraj, 59, who comes from a wealthy business family, has run the Tripoli government since 2016 as part of a U.N.-brokered deal boycotted by Haftar.

The LNA, allied with a parallel eastern administration based in Benghazi, took the oil-rich south of Libya earlier this year before its surprisingly fast push towards the coastal capital.

While that advance was straightforward through mostly sparsely populated areas, taking Tripoli is a far bigger challenge.

U.S. AND U.N. APPEAL FOR TRUCE

The violence has thrown into doubt a U.N. plan for an April 14-16 conference to plan elections as a way out of the anarchy since the Western-backed toppling of Gaddafi eight years ago.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the latest international appeal for talks to end the fighting.

"We have made clear that we oppose the military offensive by Khalifa Haftar's forces and urge the immediate halt to these military operations against the Libyan capital," he said.

A contingent of U.S. forces evacuated at the weekend.

The U.N. mission to Libya called on Sunday for a truce for two hours in southern Tripoli to evacuate civilians and wounded, but it did not appear to have been heeded.

Haftar casts himself as a foe of extremism but is viewed by opponents as a new dictator in the mould of Gaddafi, whose four-decade rule saw torture, disappearances and assassinations.

Haftar enjoys the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see him as a bulwark against Islamists and have supported him militarily, according to U.N. reports.

Forces with the Tripoli government have announced an operation to defence the capital called "Volcano of Anger".

Allied groups from Misrata down the coast have been moving pickup trucks fitted with machine guns into Tripoli.

The LNA says it has 85,000 men but this includes soldiers paid by the central government that it hopes to inherit. Its elite force, Saiqa (Lightning), numbers some 3,500, while Haftar's sons also have well-equipped troops, LNA sources say.

Since NATO-backed rebels ousted Gaddafi, Libya has been a transit point for hundreds of thousands of migrants trekking across the Sahara in hope of reaching Europe across the sea. </s> TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The U.N. secretary-general said he was “deeply concerned” after meeting eastern commander Khalifa Haftar in Libya on Friday to try to avert renewed civil war as forces advanced on Tripoli to challenge the internationally recognized government.

Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) said in the evening it had taken control of Tripoli international airport.

The thrust by the LNA, allied to a parallel administration based in the east, is a dangerous escalation of a power struggle that has dragged on since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

“I leave Libya with a heavy heart and deeply concerned. I still hope it is possible to avoid a bloody confrontation in and around Tripoli,” U.N. head Antonio Guterres said on Twitter.

“The U.N. is committed to facilitating a political solution and, whatever happens, the U.N. is committed to supporting the Libyan people.”

Al-Arabiya TV said Haftar told Guterres that the operation would continue until terrorism is defeated.

Tripoli is the ultimate prize for Haftar’s eastern parallel government. In 2014, he assembled former Gaddafi soldiers and in a three-year battle seized the main eastern city of Benghazi, then this year took the south with its oilfields.

The escalation surprised the United Nations. Guterres had been in the capital this week to help organize a national reconciliation conference planned for later this month.

But on Thursday LNA forces took Gharyan, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Tripoli after skirmishes with forces allied to Tripoli-based, U.N.-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj.

They further moved north coming as close as 40 km to Tripoli by taking the village of Suq al-Khamis after some fighting, a resident and an eastern military source said.

In the evening, the LNA said they had taken control of the areas of Qasr ben Ghashir and Wadi al-Rabie on the southern ouskirts of Tripoli, near the former Tripoli International Airport, closed since a city battle in 2014.

There was no independent confirmation, but a video posted online purportedly showed LNA fighters inside Qasr ben Ghashir.

They failed, however, to take a checkpoint about 30 km west of the capital in a bid to close the coastal road to Tunisia. An LNA-allied armed group withdrew overnight from so-called Gate 27, leaving it abandoned in the morning, a Reuters reporter said.

In another setback, forces allied to Tripoli took 145 LNA fighters prisoner in Zawiya, west of Tripoli, a western commander, Mohamed Alhudair, told Reuters. An LNA source confirmed 128 had been captured.

Sixty vehicles had also been seized, Alhudairi said.

Meanwhile armed groups allied to the U.N.-backed Tripoli government moved more machinegun-mounted pickups from the coastal city of Misrata to Tripoli to defend it against Haftar’s forces.

Guterres, who spent Thursday night in the heavily fortified U.N. compound in a Tripoli suburb, flew to Benghazi and drove to Haftar’s base, witnesses said.

He earlier went to Tobruk, another eastern city, to meet Aguila Saleh, president of the House of Representatives, which is also allied to Haftar.

“My aim remains the same: avoid a military confrontation,” Guterres earlier said on Twitter.

The offensive is a setback for the United Nations and Western countries trying to mediate between Serraj and Haftar, who met in Abu Dhabi last month to discuss a power-sharing deal.

The conference the United Nations wants to organize is aimed at forging agreement on a road map for elections to resolve the prolonged instability in Libya, an oil producer and transit point for refugees and migrants trekking across the Sahara with the aim of reaching Europe.

Haftar enjoys the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see him as a bulwark against Islamists and have supported him militarily, according to U.N. reports.

The UAE, however, joined Western countries in expressing its deep concern about the fighting.

Germany called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council due to the military escalation.

Russia said it was not helping Haftar’s forces and it supported a negotiated political settlement that ruled out any new bloodshed.

Tunisia has tightened control on its border with Libya in response to the renewed conflict, the defense ministry said.

Former colonial power Italy, which lies across the Mediterranean from Libya and has been a destination for migrants fleeing the chaos at home, was very worried by the turn of events, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said.

“We need to throw water on the fire, not petrol on the fire. I hope that people, acting out of economic or business self-interest, are not looking for a military solution, which would be devastating,” Salvini said. </s> BENGHAZI, Libya — A Libyan military spokesman says troops have routed Islamic militants from a key area they controlled in the eastern city of Benghazi.

The official speaks for the armed forces that answer to the internationally recognized parliament based in eastern Libya. Ali al-Mosmari says troops swept into the militants' stronghold in the city's western district of Ganfouda on Wednesday, after months of laying a tight siege on the area.

Al-Mosmari posted on Twitter: "We just freed Ganfouda."

He says dozens of civilians trapped by the fighting were liberated.

The two-year campaign to push militants out of Benghazi is led by Khalifa Hifter, who is not recognized by Libya's U.N.-backed government in the capital, Tripoli.

The battles have left Benghazi — Libya's second-largest city — in ruins but Hifter's popularity has surged. </s> A warplane belonging to eastern Libyan forces fighting the internationally recognized Tripoli government is seen after an emergency landing on a road in the southern Tunisian town of Beni Khadash, July 22, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

TUNIS (Reuters) - A warplane belonging to eastern Libyan forces fighting the internationally recognised Tripoli government made an emergency landing in Tunisia on Monday and the pilot was detained, the self-declared eastern foreign ministry said.

Negotiations with Tunisian authorities to secure the release of the pilot were under way, the ministry said in a statement.

The plane landed on a road in the southern Tunisian town of Beni Khadash, Tunisia’s state news agency TAP said. Tunisia’s defence ministry said the pilot informed the authorities that he was forced to make the landing after his plane was damaged.

Tunisia’s air force scrambled jets to intercept the L-39 but it landed first, a defence ministry statement said.

Witnesses said the plane touched down on a road and was surrounded by civilian vehicles that stopped to watch.

Libya has been splintered by violent turmoil since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi. The eastern Libyan National Army under Khalifa Haftar is trying to take Tripoli from forces allied to the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), but the LNA offensive has bogged down on the capital’s outskirts. </s> TRIPOLI: A convoy carrying the prime minister of Libya's U.N.-backed government and the heads of an allied parliament and presidential guard came under fire in Tripoli on Monday, but none of the three were harmed, officials said.

A spokesman for the U.N.-backed government, Ashraf Tulty, said the motorcade had been hit by shooting as it passed through Tripoli's Abu Salim district. It was unclear who was behind the shooting or whether it was a targeted attack, he said.
Libyan National Army troops reach the outskirts of the Libyan capital Tripoli, securing a key military checkpoint known as "Bridge 27".