...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn...
's airport broke out again on Friday, just hours after they had agreed a truce, an airport official and witnesses said.
| Clearly it was a hudna to rearm, not the simpler infidel truce. |
...an idea whose time has gone...
help to prevent the country from becoming a "failed state."
"The airport was once again today hit by mortar fire which struck the security offices," but caused no casualties, airport security official Al-Jilani al-Dahech told Agence La Belle France-Presse.
Airport security forces returned fire, he said without giving further details.
Libya's main international airport has been closed since Sunday, with rockets causing damage to aircraft and the main terminal building amid warnings by officials the facility could remain closed for months.
The violence erupted
when Islamist gunnies from the city of Misrata attacked anti-Islamist fighters from the city of Zintan who have been controlling the airport for the past three years.The rival fighters are among several heavily-armed militia groups who hold sway over Libya since they fought in the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
-backed 2011 uprising that toppled strongman Muammar Qadaffy
...a reminder that a single man with an idea can change an entire nation, usually for the worse...
.
Friday's festivities broke out just hours after the mayor of Tripoli announced that the rival militias had agreed to observe a truce and that control of the airport would be handed over to neutral forces.
Gunfire and blasts were also heard in Abu Slim neighborhood, just south of the airport, an AFP correspondent said while residents said the battles pitched rival militias against each other.
The renewed violence also came hours after Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdelaziz asked the United Nations for help to build up Libya's army and police to protect vital sites such as the airport.
Relentless violence across Libya in the past months has sparked fears of all-out civil war and Abdelaziz told the Security Council his country could become a "hub for attracting myrmidons".
The fighting also mirrors a deadly power struggle between liberals and Islamists in the North African country.
Mokhtar Lakhdar, a commander for the Zintan forces, told AFP that a truce had been agreed under the authority of the city's government council.
Ahmed Hadeia, a front man for Misrata fighters, said the ceasefire was "only around the airport" and did not include other sites controlled by Zintan forces.
Misrata leaders said Thursday that the fighting at the airport was a "battle of revolutionaries... against followers of the old regime" of Qadaffy.
The festivities revived fears of the conflict spreading inside Tripoli itself, with official results still awaited from a June 25 election to the parliament previously dominated by Islamists.
"Should Libya become a failed state, kidnapped by radical groups and warlords, the consequences would be far-reaching and perhaps beyond control," Abdelaziz told the Security Council.