Libyan commander orders forces to advance westward

TRIPOLI

Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar on Wednesday reportedly ordered his forces to deploy to western parts of the country with a view to “purging them of terrorist groups and strongholds”.

“On the orders of the commander-in-chief of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces [i.e., Haftar]… military units are being deployed to the western region,” a Haftar spokesman said in a statement posted on Facebook.

The statement did not provide the exact locations to which forces were reportedly being deployed.

The move comes amid mounting speculation that pro-Haftar forces plan to march on capital Tripoli, where Libya’s UN-backed unity government is headquartered.

Libya has remained beset by turmoil since 2011, when a bloody NATO-backed uprising led to the ouster and death of President Muammar Gaddafi after four decades in power.

Since then, Libya’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power: one in the eastern city of Al-Bayda (to which Haftar is affiliated) and another in Tripoli.

On April 14, a UN-sponsored “national dialogue” conference will be held in Libya’s western town of Ghadames with the aim of hammering out a political “roadmap” for the troubled country’s future.

* Writing by Mahmoud Barakat