Haftar’s militias rock Tripoli civilian areas with over 50 rockets amid Geneva political talks

Tripoli has been targeted by Khalifa Haftar’s militias with numerous rockets and shells that fell on Mitiga Airport and several neighborhoods in Abu Salim and Souq Al-Jumua, in addition to Garabulli, where an entire family suffered injuries due to the shelling.

Mitiga Airport suspened flights briefly on Friday morning after the attacks, evacuating the passenger lounge amid a state of panic and horror as rockets hit different locations at the airport, including the runway.

UN Stance

The UN envoy to Libya warned in a press conference in Geneva of deviation from the tracks that should lead to permanent ceasefire and warned of turning Libya’s war into a regional one.

He added, while Tripoli was under Haftar militias’ fire, that the three UN-led tracks are parallel not conditioned on one another, saying the next political talks round will be on March 15.

“Before everything else, I would like to say that the country in the past 24 hours had seen has witnessed a very serious violation of the truce.  In fact, it could have been almost a breakdown of that truce with many areas being hit by shelling.” Salame explained that it is clear that neither one of the three tracks can move positively while the cannon is doing what it is doing right now, yet he failed to name that Haftar and his militias were the ones keeping the cannon busy.

The UN envoy called for the respect of the truce that had been accepted by the two sides on January 12, insisting that the three tracks will continue despite everything, the political, the economic and the military ones.

Geneva Talks Stalled

Nine ot the participants in the political talks in Geneva called on Salame to voice a clear condemnation of the hindrance of the political track by the random shelling on Tripoli. They called for accountability for those who committed crimes and violated UN ceasefire resolution.

It’s worth mentioning that both the Tripoli-based House of Representatives and High Council of State suspended their participation in the political talks until progress is made by the miiltary ones.