Libya gov’t calls on world to supply it with arms to fight ISIL
Libya’s internationally recognized government has called on the global community to help the fight against the ISIL Takfiri militants, who recently seized a key airbase in the northern coastal city of Sirte.
The eastern-based Libyan government posted a statement on its official Facebook page on Saturday, warning against the ISIL’s capture of the country’s oil fields “to fund its operations.”
ISIL, which has been engaged in heinous crimes in different parts of Iraq and Syria, emerged in Libya in February 2015, after releasing a video that showed the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in the country. The terrorist group, who launched a military parade in the streets of the coastal city in February, has also attacked oil fields to spread out their territory to the east of Sirte.
On Friday, the Takfiri group took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in the central part of Sirte, after forces belonging to the Tripoli-based Libyan government, which is not recognized by the international community, withdrew from the seized airbase late on Thursday.
“The government is doing everything to retake the town of Sirte and its airport from terrorist hands,” said the statement, calling for arms from outside the violence-wracked North African country to supply its forces.
Libya has two rival governments striving to gain control of the country, with one faction controlling Tripoli, and the other, Libya’s internationally recognized government, governing the eastern cities of Bayda and Tobruk. In August 2014, Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) militia and some armed groups based in the northwestern city of Misrata seized Tripoli and most government institutions.
In February, the internationally recognized government of Libya asked the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to lift an arms embargo, which has been imposed on the chaos-stricken country since the 2011 ouster of the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi.
Officials in the Tripoli-based government said that ISIL had allied with the supporters of the ousted Gaddafi regime to make strategic gains in his oil-rich hometown, Sirte.
MIS/NT
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