By Ahmed Elumami and Ulf Laessing TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Heavily armed gunmen stormed Libya's parliament on Sunday demanding its suspension and claiming loyalty to a renegade army general who has vowed to purge the country of Islamist militants. Smoke rose over parliament after gunmen attacked and then withdrew, and gunfire erupted across Tripoli, where rival militias clashed in some of the worst violence in the city since the end the 2011 war against Muammar Gaddafi. Details of who was involved Sunday's chaotic attack were unclear, but loyalists of retired General Khalifa Haftar said his forces and militia allies had planned the parliament assault in a campaign to rid Libya of Islamist hardliners. Any alliance of militias lining up against Islamist groups threatens to deepen chaos in the OPEC oil producer where a fragile government already struggles to gain legitimacy and impose authority over brigades of former fighters.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gunmen-loyal-ex-general-storm-libyan-parliament-demand-001900052.html

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2014 at 7:19 pm and is filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.