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| Africa North |
| Two killed in rocket strike in Libya's Benghazi: Medics |
| 2015-05-08 |
| [AlAhram] Two people were killed when a rocket hit a residential building in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Thursday, bringing the corpse count from recent fighting to at least 53 people in the past five weeks, medics said. Forces loyal to Libya's internationally recognised government have been fighting Islamist groups in the eastern port city, part of a wider struggle in the four years since Muammar Qadaffy ...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later... was tossed and killed. Army forces have regained some territory in Benghazi lost last year, but fighters of the Islamist Majlis al-Shura still control several districts and the commercial port area. On Thursday, a rocket hit a residential building, killing two civilians and wounding around four, a hospital medic said. Around 17 civilians have been killed and 90 maimed in artillery and rocket strikes since the start of April. Another 36 soldiers and armed youth were killed and around 270 maimed in street fighting between pro-government and Islamist forces since April, army and medical sources said. Mohammed El Hejazi, an army front man, said the Islamists were firing the rockets whenever his forces approached their strongholds. The Islamist camp denies this. The battle eptiomises the chaos in Libya, where gangs back two governments vying for control. The official prime minister has been based in the east since the capital, Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , was seized by a rival group that set up its own government. Only the eastern government is internationally recognised. Both sides command loose coalitions of former anti-Qadaffy rebels. After Qadaffy's ouster in 2011, the various factions split along political, regional and tribal lines. The Tripoli government backs the Majlis al-Shura umbrella group to which Ansar al-Sharia ...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libyaand Yemen, with the Libyan versions currently most active. Tunisia's Shabaab al-Tawhid started out an Ansar al-Sharia and changed its name in early 2014. It still uses the old name now and then, probably because the stationery's not all used up and the web site hasn't expired yet... belongs. That was the group blamed by Washington for a 2012 assault on its diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |