The forces of eastern Libya’s military strongman Khalifa Haftar have lost control of a key oil export terminal they had seized last year, a spokesman conceded on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Colonel Ahmad al-Mismari said that the rival forces had overrun the main airfield in the oil port of Ras Lanuf and identified them as Islamists of the Benghazi Defence Brigades.<\/p>\n
An array of forces, most of them loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli, have been involved in efforts to oust Haftar from the oil ports, whose seizure enabled him to pose a major challenge to its authority.<\/p>\n
But the Tripoli government on Friday evening denied any involvement in the renewed offensive on the oil ports, condemning it as a “military escalation”.<\/p>\n
The forces involved in the latest assault are a mixture of Islamist militias, eastern tribes opposed to Haftar and members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard which controlled the ports before Haftar’s takeover.<\/p>\n
“The attackers were armed with modern tanks and a radar to neutralise our air force,” Mismari said.<\/p>\n
“But the battle is ongoing. The situation in the Oil Crescent remains under control.”<\/p>\n
There are four ports along the Oil Crescent on the eastern part of the Gulf of Sirte which account for the lion’s share of Libya’s oil exports.<\/p>\n
Haftar’s forces seized Zueitina, Brega, Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra in a lightning offensive last September that dealt a major blow to the UN-backed Government of National Accord.<\/p>\n
Haftar dominates a rival administration based in the east that continues to defy the GNA’s authority.<\/p>\n
He has backing from neighbouring Egypt, from the United Arab Emirates and increasingly from Russia.<\/p>\n
Russia has been trying to broker talks in Egypt between Haftar and the GNA that would see it reformed with a major role for the strongman but so far they have not borne fruit.<\/p>\n
Exports from the eastern oil terminals are Libya’s main source of hard currency and so control over them has been bitterly contested.<\/p>\n
In December, the Benghazi Defence Brigades carried out a similar attack on the Oil Crescent, but were repelled by Haftar’s forces.<\/p>\n
And in January, powerful militias from the western city of Misrata joined another such attack.<\/p>\n
Rocked by chaos since the overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, Libya desperately needs to relaunch its oil exports, the backbone of its economy.<\/p>\n
The GNA has struggled to impose its authority as it faces a multitude of battle-hardened fighters who took part in the uprising that ousted Kadhafi.<\/p>\n
Source: France 24<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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