Fighting in Libya’s Capital as One Government Seizes Another’s Compound

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/world/middleeast/libya-tripoli-fighting.html

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TRIPOLI, Libya — Armed groups aligned with a Libyan government in Tripoli that is backed by the United Nations took over a compound occupied by the leader of a rival government on Wednesday after heavy fighting that spread to several parts of the city.

The offices of a television station sympathetic to the self-declared government opposed to the one backed by the United Nations were burned down in the clashes, and the channel went off air. A hospital was also hit.

The fighting apparently was set off on Monday by a dispute over control of a bank in the Hay al-Andalus neighborhood. It then escalated into power struggles between militias loyal to the rival governments: the Government of National Accord, which is backed by the United Nations, and the self-declared National Salvation Government.

Tripoli, Libya’s capital, is controlled by a patchwork of armed groups that have built local fiefs and vied for power since Libya’s 2011 uprising.

Gunfights continued for much of Tuesday in western Tripoli before spreading to southern neighborhoods after sunset. Gunfire and explosions could be heard late into the night, with tanks and other heavy weapons deployed on the streets.

By Wednesday, the Government of National Accord had posted guards outside the Rixos hotel complex, where the leader of the National Salvation Government, Khalifa al-Ghwell, had established a base.

Mr. Ghwell suffered a minor injury as he tried to leave the Rixos at dawn on Wednesday, one of his aides told a local website, Afrigatenews.

He was quoted by the website as saying, “Our National Salvation Government withdrew from its offices in Tripoli to stop the bloodshed.”

No details about casualties were available, but a 14-year-old girl was killed when a residential building in central Tripoli was hit, according to her relatives.

Offices and hotels near Tripoli’s western seafront were also hit by missiles or shelling, and a hospital in the Abu Salim district caught fire when it was hit during the fighting.

Classes at schools in central Tripoli were canceled on Wednesday because of the violence. Sporadic gunfire could be heard across the city.

The offices of the television station that was taken off air, Al Nabaa, were still smoldering on Wednesday morning. It was not clear who had carried out the attack.

Al Nabaa was also taken off air for several weeks at the end of last March when its building was attacked as the unity government’s leadership arrived in Tripoli.

Subsequently, the National Salvation Government and its armed supporters resurfaced as the unity government struggled to impose its authority. Several rounds of heavier clashes have broken out between groups that support the unity government and those that oppose it.