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| Africa North |
| Heavy fighting as Ansar attacks Benghazi's Garyounis district |
| 2015-01-21 |
| [Libya Herald] Fierce fighting has broken out in Garyounis, near Benghazi university, in what appears to be a major counterattack by 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... . As a nearby resident told the Libya Herald this evening, while the sounds of artillery could be heard in the background: "Something is abnormal. We have not heard sounds like this for a long time". Only four days ago, an Army front man was telling this news hound that, with exception of the continuing fighting around Ansar strong points in Leithi and Sabri and the still-disputed main port, the rest of the city was secure. Certainly the strong police and army presence in the city centre a week ago today, saw off the remote possibility of a response to the "intifada" called by the Islamist commander of the Libya Shield ...a conglomerate of pro-Islamist militias deployed across Libya. It reports to the Libyan defense ministry and is organized like a real army unit. Its commander used to head a Benghazi brigade called Free Libya Martyrs... 1 Brigade, Wissam Bin Hamid. The fighting around Garyounis began last night, continued the a low level and picked up this evening. Yesterday evening a jet was heard flying over the battle area and another passed over this evening. But on nether occasion did any bombs appear to be dropped. The misery and anxiety of Benghazinos was increased by the power cut that knocked out electricity to virtually the whole city from midday until early this evening. GECOL blamed the outage on a loss of gas pressure to the 300MW Benghazi North power station. Despite Al Madar's assurances that it is fixed, its phone system continues to be out for most of Benghazi. |
| Posted by:Fred |