Daily Times

At least 16 people were killed and 52 wounded in fighting between armed groups in Tripoli, the health ministry said Saturday, following the latest politically driven violence to hit the Libyan capital. The fighting began on Thursday night and extended into Friday afternoon. The toll revises up an earlier figure of 13, including three civilians, provided by the ambulance service. The clashes were between two armed groups with major clout in the west of the war-torn country: the Al-Radaa force and the Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigade.

Several sources said one group’s detention of a fighter belonging to the other had sparked the fighting, which extended to several districts of the capital. On Friday, another group called the 444 Brigade intervened to mediate a truce, deploying its own forces in a buffer zone before they too came under heavy fire, an AFP photographer reported. “All the wounded received medical care in hospitals” in Tripoli, the health ministry said in a statement. It did not provide an update on how many civilians were among the dead. Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah’s government suspended interior minister Khaled Mazen after the fighting, replacing him on an interim basis with Bader Eddine al-Toumi, the local government minister. Mitiga, the capital’s sole functioning airport, was closed for several hours on Friday before it reopened late in the day.