TUNIS: Jet fuel tanks at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport were targeted in an attack on Saturday that caused a large fire, Libya’s National Oil Corp. (NOC) said.
Mitiga is the last functioning airport in the Libyan capital, though civilian flights stopped in March because of repeated shelling even before the country imposed a lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic.
The NOC statement, posted on the state-run company’s Facebook page, gave no details of the attack but said firemen were working to bring the blaze under control.
Video shared with Reuters by an airport worker showed plumes of black smoke billowing over the apron.
The eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) of Khalifa Haftar has been fighting for more than a year to capture Tripoli, currently ruled by the Government of National Accord (GNA), with frequent shelling of the capital. LNA has been bombarding Tripoli for months as part of a year-long war to capture the city.
Pro-GNA forces have retaken some territory from the LNA during an escalation of fighting in recent weeks with the help of Turkish-supplied drones.
Late on Thursday, shells landed near the Turkish and Italian embassies in central Tripoli, an apparent expansion of bombardment by eastern Libyan forces of a central district of the Libyan capital that drew EU condemnation.
The Turkish ambassador told Reuters in a message that a Grad missile had struck the High Court building next to the embassy and another landed by the Foreign Ministry.
Italy’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter the area near around the Italian ambassador’s residence was hit, causing at least two deaths.
The EU, in a statement, condemned what it called “the latest in a series of shellings and indiscriminate attacks against civilians.”
SPEEDREAD
Mitiga is the last functioning airport in the Libyan capital, though civilian flights stopped in March because of repeated shelling even before the country imposed a lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic.
Shells also landed around the city’s port, where the UN migration agency had to abort an operation to disembark migrants who had been rescued at sea.
LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari late on Friday denied that it had targeted embassies, accusing pro-GNA forces of shelling areas they hold in order to incite opinion against the LNA.
Mismari had this week announced the start of a new air campaign, and said strikes had targeted an air base at Misrata.
Local authorities there said the loud blasts that occurred late on Wednesday were caused by a storage problem with old munitions.
Pro-GNA forces have been able to reverse some of the losses they suffered last year with the help of Turkish drones and air defense systems, which stopped most air strikes by the LNA and its allies.
A member of parliament for the town of Rujban, Salah Suhbi, told Reuters that a drone strike had killed nine policemen in the LNA-held town on Thursday.
The UN Libya mission said last month that during the first quarter of 2020 at least 131 civilians were killed or injured, a rise of 45 percent over the last quarter of 2019 as the fighting escalated.
It said ground fighting was the main cause of the deaths and that four fifths of them were caused by forces affiliated to the LNA.
