Heavy fighting raged on Sunday around Libya’s main international airport as Islamist militia attacked liberal rivals in their Tripoli bastion, in an intensifying power struggle after a controversial June election.
The exchanges with heavy weapons halted flights and came as foreign ministers from the North African nation’s neighbours were to meet in Tunisia to consider how to aid violence-wracked Libya.
The assault on the Zintan group by rival Islamist militants also came after the UN pulled staff from Libya citing security reasons, and as the United States warned of further escalation.
“Clashes followed between the Zintan militia who control the airport and rivals who want to drive them out,” an official said.
The fighting was heard in the city centre, 25 kilometres (15 miles) away. The former rebel Zintan militia helped topple strongman Moamer Kadhafi in the 2011 NATO-backed uprising, and is now well established in Tripoli, controlling the airport and military sites.
The heavily armed group, named after a hill town southwest of the capital, is considered the armed wing of the liberal movement which is jockeying for power with Islamists who dominate parliament.
Sunday’s attack was claimed by the Operations Cell of Libyan Revolutionaries, a coalition of Islamist militias seen as the armed wing of Islamists within the General National Congress or parliament.
