...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...
early on Friday between rival armed forces, witnesses said, the heaviest festivities in the Libyan capital since the conflict between eastern and western factions paused a year ago.
A resident of the Salah al-Din district in southern Tripoli said shooting began at about 2:30 am and continued through the morning with medium and light weapons. There was no immediate report of casualties.
Conflict in Tripoli between the gangs who vie to control both territory and state institutions would further undermine the prospect of December elections as part of a plan to end a decade of chaos, violence and division.
Despite a ceasefire and progress earlier this year towards a political solution to Libya’s crisis, there has been no movement towards integrating its myriad gangs into a unified national military.
Libya is a major oil producer and though it has been able to maintain output over the past decade, disputes have sometimes shut down exports, including for months last year.
The new fighting pitted the 444 Brigade against the Stabilization Support Force, two of the main forces in Tripoli, a witness said.
It follows major festivities last month in the city of Zawiya, west of Tripoli, and smaller incidents of friction or festivities inside the capital including a shootout this week at a state institution.
In eastern Libya, controlled by 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, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. 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. Actually, he is, but slowly...’s Libyan National Army (LNA), there have also been shootings and other incidents of violence in recent months.
Libya has had little peace since the 2011 NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
-backed uprising that overthrew longtime ruler Muammar al-Qadaffy, and it divided in 2014 between warring eastern and western factions.
However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
they agreed a ceasefire last year and a new unity government that both sides backed was installed in March to prepare for national elections in December, moves seen as the best chance for peace in years.
The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) has however struggled to unify state institutions or prepare for elections, with the eastern-based parliament rejecting its budget and failing to agree a constitutional basis for a vote.
Wolfram Lacher, of the German thinktank SWP, said that although there was the possibility of further escalation, a mediated solution was likely to resolve the fighting in the short term.
However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
"similar festivities are bound to recur in Tripoli and elsewhere", he added.