Death toll in Libya crisis rises as battle for Tripoli intensifies

The eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of Khalifa Haftar, a former officer in Gaddafi’s army said on Monday that 19 of its soldiers had been killed as battle for Tripoli intensified.

In recent days, LNA forces closed in on the internationally recognised government in Tripoli.

Eastern Libyan forces sought to reach the centre of Tripoli after their easy advance through desert hit a trickier urban phase, with deaths and displacements mounting and the West aghast at the threat to its peace plan.

Renewed civil war in Libya splintered into areas of factional control since the 2011 overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, threatens to disrupt oil and gas supplies, trigger more migration to Europe, and allow Islamist militants to exploit the chaos.

The United Nations said 2,800 people were displaced by clashes and many more could flee, though some were trapped.

The LNA had made air strikes on the south of the city as it seeks to advance into the centre from the disused airport.

But the Tripoli government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, which reported 11 deaths without specifying on which side, had armed groups arriving from nearby Misrata to block the LNA.

Al-Serraj, 59, who comes from a wealthy business family, has run the Tripoli government since 2016 as part of UN-brokered deal boycotted by Haftar.

The LNA, allied with a parallel eastern administration based in Benghazi, took the oil-rich south of Libya earlier this year before its surprisingly fast push toward the coastal capital.

While that advance was straightforward through mostly sparsely populated areas, taking Tripoli is a far bigger challenge.

-AlJazeera