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Eighteen hurt as two car blasts target Libya military unit: Sources
[AlAhram] At least 18 people were maimed in two boom-mobile kabooms that targeted a military unit in Libya's eastern coastal city of Derna, sending plumes of black smoke into the sky, a medical source and residents told Rooters early on Sunday.Residents said the boom-mobiles targeted a military unit called Bulahati belonging to the eastern forces of the Libyan National Army (LNA) in the city centre. "We heard the first kaboom, but we thought it was fireworks, then we heard the second," one resident told Rooters by telephone. "We found people around the Bulahati military unit and there was huge black smoke in the sky," another added. "We then discovered it was boom-mobiles." Derna, once a jihadist bastion, is about 292 km (182 miles) distant from Libya's second city, Benghazi, and was declared to be under the complete control of Khalifa Haftar  ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all...'s LNA in June 2018. After the ouster of longtime ruler Muammar Qadaffy ...a proud Arab institution for 42 years, now among the dear departed, though not the dearest... in a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... -backed uprising in 2011, bad boy groups Al Qaeda and Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... have used the oil-rich country as a base for attacks, exploiting its chaos and lack of security. Posted by: trailing wife 2019-06-03 |
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