adminLibya’s military prosecutor has ordered the arrest of retired Major General Khalifa Haftar and three others in connection with “kidnappings and killings of citizens”, as clashes renewed on Tuesday south of the capital Tripoli.
“We order the arrest of Khalifa Haftar, Aoun al-Ferjani (retired brigadier general), Abd al-Razzaq al-Nadhouri (retired colonel) and Al-Sharif Masood Daw (retired colonel),” the military prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Renewed clashes began this week between the forces of the government of reconciliation, internationally recognized, and the forces of Haftar in the south of the Libyan capital.
A military source from the forces of the government of reconciliation, it “launched an attack on the forces of Haftar heavy and medium weapons in the axes of Yarmouk and Ain Zara in southern Tripoli.”
The source added that Haftar’s forces are no longer controlling only some of the limited positions in these two axes and pointed to the outbreak of intermittent clashes with medium and heavy weapons from time to time in the mixer axis south of the capital.
Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch accused Haftar and his forces of underestimating the lives of civilians through “indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
The international human rights group said Haftar’s forces launched a series of unlawful airstrikes that caused civilian casualties, including an attack it described as a “violation of the laws of war” on a house in a residential area of Tripoli on October 14 that killed three girls and wounded another sister and their mother.
Since April 4, Haftar’s forces have launched an offensive to take control of Tripoli, where the National Accord government is based, which it says is backed by terrorist militias.
The clashes resulted in the death of about 1600 people, including dozens of civilians, and the injury of about seven thousand others, while the number of displaced exceeded 125 thousand people
(From A.L., our correspondent in Tunisia)