Libyan capital sees tense calm following rocket attacks

TRIPOLI

Cautious calm prevailed in Libyan capital Tripoli late Monday morning hours after the city was shaken by a rocket attack.

According to an Anadolu Agency correspondent based in the area, three grad missiles struck Tripoli’s residential Abu Salim district early Monday without causing any casualties.

It remains unclear who fired the missiles.

Late last night, armed clashes -- which first erupted on August 26 -- resumed in southern Tripoli between militias affiliated with Libya’s national unity government and rival armed groups.

The violence first erupted late last month after Libya’s so-called Seventh Brigade (affiliated with the Tripoli-based Defense Ministry) accused the Tripoli Revolutionary Brigade, a rival group, of attacking its positions on the city’s southern outskirts.

On Sept. 4, a UN-brokered ceasefire brought a temporary halt to the fighting, which resumed six days later and has continued intermittently ever since.

The Seventh Brigade, which hails from the town of Tarhuna (located 65 kilometers southeast of Tripoli), was officially sanctioned by the unity government in 2016.

In April of this year, however, Libya’s Presidential Council (affiliated with the unity government) announced the dissolution of the Seventh Brigade, which has nevertheless continued to maintain an armed presence in the capital.

Libya has remained dogged by turmoil since when a bloody NATO-backed uprising led to the ouster and death of long-serving President Muammar Gaddafi after more than four decades in power.

Since then, Libya’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power -- one in Tobruk and another in Tripoli -- and a host of heavily armed militia groups.

Reporting by Walid Abdullah; Writing by Mahmoud Barakat