CAIRO: Daesh claimed responsibility for a gun attack on a checkpoint east of the Libyan capital Tripoli earlier this week, the group’s Amaq news agency said on Saturday.
Thursday’s attack took place between the towns of Zliten and Khoms on the coastal road leading from Tripoli to the port city of Misrata, an area in which members of the Islamist militant group are known to be operating, according to the Zliten mayor.
Amaq said “seven Libyan road security personnel were killed” in the attack by Daesh fighters, while around 10 more were wounded. It provided no evidence.
A local official and a resident on Thursday said at least four people had been killed in the attack, among them security personnel.
Libya has seen occasional attacks by Islamist militants who have benefited from the turmoil that followed a NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Daesh has said it was behind a deadly attack by gunmen on the offices of the electoral commission in Tripoli in May and an attack on a court complex in Misrata last year.
Local forces drove the militant group from its former stronghold in Sirte, southeast of Misrata, in 2016, but Libyan and Western officials say militants have sought to regroup through mobile desert units and sleeper cells in northern towns.
The United Nations is leading efforts to prepare for national elections in Libya, which it hopes will reunify rival factions based in Tripoli and the east of the country.
Daesh claims responsibility for western Libya checkpoint attack
Daesh claims responsibility for western Libya checkpoint attack
- Amaq said “seven Libyan road security personnel were killed” in the attack by Daesh fighters
- Thursday’s attack took place between the towns of Zliten and Khoms
Israeli FM urges Jews to move to Israel a week after Sydney attack
- “Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!” Saar said
JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called on Sunday for Jews in Western countries to move to Israel to escape rising antisemitism, one week after 15 were shot dead at a Jewish event in Sydney.
“Jews have the right to live in safety everywhere. But we see and fully understand what is happening, and we have a certain historical experience. Today, Jews are being hunted across the world,” Saar said at a public candle lighting marking the last day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!” Saar said at the ceremony, held with leaders of Jewish communities and organizations worldwide.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israeli leaders have repeatedly denounced a surge in antisemitism in Western countries and accused their governments of failing to curb it.
Australian authorities have said the December 14 attack on a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach was inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State jihadist group.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Western governments to better protect their Jewish citizens.
“I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to fight antisemitism and provide the required safety and security for Jewish communities worldwide,” Netanyahu said in a video address.
In October, Saar accused British authorities of failing to take action to curb a “toxic wave of antisemitism” following an attack outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, in which two people were killed and four wounded.
According to Israel’s 1950 “Law of Return,” any Jewish person in the world is entitled to settle in Israel (a process known in Hebrew as aliyah, or “ascent“) and acquire Israeli citizenship. The law also applies to individuals who have at least one Jewish grandparent.zz
