American Concern Over Renewed Clashes In Tripoli, Libya

The US State Department said on Monday that it is deeply concerned about the renewed armed confrontations in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, while the forces of retired Major General Khalifa Haftar announced that they had shot down a drone near Benina Airport in Benghazi.

In a statement on Libya, US State Department spokesman Ned Price stressed that the United States is deeply concerned about the renewed threats of violent confrontation in Tripoli.

He called for an immediate halt to the escalation by all Libyan parties and also called on those who said they risk being drawn into violence to lay down their arms.

Price urged Libya's leaders to recommit, without delay, to setting a constitutional basis for presidential and parliamentary elections.

He explained that the ongoing instability was a reminder of the urgent need to appoint a special UN representative in Libya to resume mediation efforts.

Last July, 16 people were killed and 52 others wounded during clashes in Tripoli between forces from the "Presidential Council Guard" and others from the "Deterrence Service".

Oil-rich Libya is witnessing a political division and a power struggle between two governments, one of which is the Fathi Pashaga government, which was commissioned by the House of Representatives in early March, and the "National Unity" government headed by Dabaiba, which refuses to hand over power except to a government that comes through an elected parliament.

Shotting down a drone

In the east of the country, Khalifa Haftar's forces said they had shot down a drone near Benina Airport in Benghazi. A video clip spread on social media showed a burning object falling from the sky and exploding in a field.

The spokesman for Haftar's forces, Major General Ahmed Al-Mismari, confirmed that an unidentified drone loaded with two missiles had been shot down after it penetrated the airspace.

A special source told Al Jazeera that the downing of the drone over Benghazi was carried out by the Russian Pantsir air defense system.

The Benina base on the outskirts of Benghazi is one of the most important military bases in the east of the country. Benina International Airport is located inside it, and it is within the control of the so-called General Command of the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar.

A new mass grave

In a related context, the Libyan authority announced on Monday that 7 unidentified bodies had been found in a mass grave in the city of Tarhuna, western Libya, where dozens of mass graves have been discovered since the summer of 2020.

The Public Authority for Searching and Identification of Missing Persons (governmental) said in a statement that a "new mass grave" was discovered on Sunday in a "public landfill" from which 7 bodies were recovered.

It explained that the bodies will be examined by forensic medicine and samples will be taken and referred to the laboratories department, to complete the process of matching with the reference samples for the families of the missing people.

The spokesman for the authority, Abdulaziz Al-Jaafari, confirmed that the number of tombs discovered in Tarhuna reached 80, 43 collective and 37 individual.

Al-Jaafari explained to the Anadolu Agency last March that the graves were distributed among 3 areas in Tarhuna: 55 cemeteries in the linkage project, 18 in the agricultural project (5 km), and 7 cemeteries in the garbage dump.

Tarhuna is a small agricultural town where more than 250 bodies have been found in mass graves since the summer of 2020, and their presence was first reported after the withdrawal of Khalifa Haftar's forces from the city in June 2020.

The violations began as early as 2015 in Tarhuna when the local Kani militia, known as the Kaniyat, took control of the city.

The militia led by the 6 Brothers spread terror among the population and systematically eliminated opponents.

It was initially affiliated with the previous government in Tripoli, before declaring its support for Haftar and joining him in his failed attempt to seize the capital.

Its leader, Muhammad al-Kani, was shot dead in July 2021 in Benghazi (east) in mysterious circumstances.

A fact-finding mission of United Nations experts described the violations in Tarhuna as "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity".