BENGHAZI/TRIPOLI: Nine soldiers were killed on Saturday in an attack claimed by Islamic State on a training camp belonging to the eastern Libyan forces of Khalifa Haftar, hospital authorities said.
The attack took place in the city of Sebha, located in part of the oil-producing south that is targeted by armed groups looking to exploit a security void.
Haftar has concentrated his forces in the northwest, where they have been embroiled for the past month in a battle for the capital Tripoli with fighters allied to the divided country’s internationally recognized government.
Clashes raged in Tripoli’s southern outskirts throughout the night with the rival forces firing at each other with artillery guns, residents said. No more details were immediately available.
Daesh claimed the Sebha attack. Its fighters had killed or wounded 16 and freed inmates from a prison, the jihadist group said in a statement posted online.
A military source said a jail inside the attacked Jabril Baba camp had been stormed but gave no details. Sebha hospital put the number of dead at nine, a statement on its website said.
Hamed Al-Khaiyali, head of the local municipality, earlier told Reuters one soldier had been beheaded and seven others “slaughtered” or shot. Pictures posted online showed bodies fully covered by blankets.
A source in Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) blamed Daesh and Chadian fighters for the attack, the latter a term used by the LNA for tribesmen opposing Haftar.
News-gathering in southern Libya is difficult due to the absence of an effective state authority in a region dominated by different armed groups and tribes.
The LNA, which is allied to a parallel government in the east, faced strong opposition from ethnic Tebus during a military campaign it ran in the south at the start of the year.
Sebha — like much of the south and its oilfields — is controlled by the LNA but the force has co-opted local armed groups and tribesmen to control territory.
Such alliances often shift in a country that has been in chaos since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The LNA has moved troops from its southern campaign toward the Tripoli front, also moving in heavy guns in the past week. But it has been unable to breach defenses in the city’s southern suburbs.
Daesh is active in the south to where it retreated after losing its stronghold in the central city of Sirte in December 2016.
There have been several attacks in southern Libya since the Tripoli offensive, among them an assault on the Tamanhint air base outside Sebha and clashes at the El-Sharara oilfield, the country’s biggest.
As well as the humanitarian cost, the Libya conflict threatens to disrupt oil supplies, boost migration to Europe and has scuppered a UN peace plan to hold elections to produce a unified government and army.
Daesh attack on Haftar camp in south Libya kills 9 soldiers
Daesh attack on Haftar camp in south Libya kills 9 soldiers
- A military source said Daesh militants and Chadian opposition fighters were responsible for the attack
Fresh clashes kill six in Iran cost-of-living protests
- The protests began on Sunday in Tehran, where shopkeepers went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation
- Earlier Thursday, state television reported that a member of Iran’s security forces was killed overnight during protests in the western city of Kouhdasht
TEHRAN: Protesters and security forces clashed in several Iranian cities on Thursday, with six reported killed, the first deaths since the cost-of-living demonstrations broke out.
The protests began on Sunday in Tehran, where shopkeepers went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, and have since spread to other parts of the country.
On Thursday, Iran’s Fars news agency reported two people killed in clashes between security forces and protesters in the city of Lordegan, in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and three in Azna, in neighboring Lorestan province.
“Some protesters began throwing stones at the city’s administrative buildings, including the provincial governor’s office, the mosque, the Martyrs’ Foundation, the town hall and banks,” Fars said of Lordegan, adding that police responded with tear gas.
Fars reported that the buildings were “severely damaged” and that police arrested several people described as “ringleaders.”
In Azna, Fars said “rioters took advantage of a protest gathering... to attack a police commissariat.”
During previous protest movements, state media has labelled demonstrators “rioters.”
Earlier Thursday, state television reported that a member of Iran’s security forces was killed overnight during protests in the western city of Kouhdasht.
“A 21-year-old member of the Basij from the city of Kouhdasht was killed last night by rioters while defending public order,” the channel said, citing Said Pourali, the deputy governor of Lorestan Province.
The Basij are a volunteer paramilitary force linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the ideological branch of the Islamic republic’s army.
Pourali said that “during the demonstrations in Kouhdasht, 13 police officers and Basij members were injured by stone throwing.”
In the western city of Hamedan, protesters torched a motorbike in what the Tasnim news agency described as an unsuccessful attempt to burn down a mosque.
The same agency reported on Thursday that 30 people in a district of Tehran had been arrested the night before for alleged public order offenses in a “coordinated operation by the security and intelligence services.”
- ‘End up in hell’ -
The demonstrations are smaller than the last major outbreak of unrest in 2022, triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.
Her death sparked a nationwide wave of anger that left several hundred people dead, including dozens of members of the security forces.
The latest protests began in the capital and spread after students from at least 10 universities joined in on Tuesday.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has sought to calm tensions, acknowledging protesters’ “legitimate demands,” and he urged the government Thursday to take action to improve the economic situation.
“From an Islamic perspective... if we do not resolve the issue of people’s livelihoods, we will end up in Hell,” Pezeshkian said at an event broadcast on state television.
Authorities, however, have also promised to take a “firm” stance, and have warned against exploiting the situation to sow chaos.
Local media coverage of the demonstrations has varied, with some outlets focusing on economic difficulties, and others on incidents caused by “troublemakers.”
Iran is in the middle of an extended weekend, with the authorities declaring Wednesday a bank holiday at the last minute, citing the need to save energy during the cold weather.
They made no official link to the protests.
The weekend in Iran begins on Thursday, and Saturday is a long-standing national holiday.
Iran’s prosecutor general said on Wednesday that peaceful economic protests were legitimate, but any attempt to create insecurity would be met with a “decisive response.”
“Any attempt to turn economic protests into a tool of insecurity, destruction of public property, or implementation of externally designed scenarios will inevitably be met with a legal, proportionate and decisive response.”
- Viral video -
Earlier this week, a video showing a person sitting in the middle of a Tehran street facing down motorcycle police went viral on social media, with some seeing it as a “Tiananmen moment” — a reference to the famous image of a Chinese protester defying a column of tanks during 1989 anti-government protests in Beijing.
On Thursday, state television alleged the footage had been staged to “create a symbol” and aired another video purportedly shot from another angle by a police officer’s camera.
Sitting cross-legged, the protester remains impassive, head bowed, before covering his head with his jacket as behind him a crowd flees clouds of tear gas.
On Wednesday evening, Tasnim reported the arrest of seven people it described as being affiliated with “groups hostile to the Islamic Republic based in the United States and Europe.”
It said they had been “tasked with turning the demonstrations into violence.” Tasnim did not say when they were arrested.
The national currency, the rial, has lost more than a third of its value against the US dollar over the past year, while double-digit hyperinflation has been undermining Iranians’ purchasing power for years.
The inflation rate in December was 52 percent year-on-year, according to the Statistical Center of Iran, an official body.
