World
The U.N. Security Council calls for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and sanctions against those involved in the recent surge in violence there. The BBC writes:
Libya's ambassador to the UN called the resolution a "milestone", but has warned of "a full-blown civil war". The list of those to face sanctions is yet to be decided.
The Security Council has been alarmed by the increase in fighting between militia groups and army factions. Recent clashes have centred on the international airport in the capital, Tripoli, which is now under the control of militias from Misrata and other cities operating under the banner Libya Dawn, including some Islamist groups.
They took it from the hands of a Zintan-based militia, despite alleged air strikes carried out by Egypt and the UAE targeting the Islamist-linked group.
Libya is also facing political turmoil, with two rival leaders and assemblies currently operating in two different parts of the country, each backed by rival armed groups.
Amid the recent surge in violence, the Economist wonders if civil war is inevitable:
Five weeks of clashes that had paralysed Tripoli, Libya's capital, came to an end rather suddenly on August 23rd when the prize fought over, the city’s international airport (or what remains of it), changed hands.
The winners are an alliance of militias that includes Islamists as well as men from the powerful port city of Misrata and Amazigh (or Berber) and other fighters drawn from smaller towns in Libya’s western flank. They defeated militiamen from the conservative mountain town of Zintan who had held the airport since the Libyan capital fell to rebel forces in late 2011.
The Zintanis’ presence at the airport had bred resentment not just among rivals, but also ordinary Tripoli residents fed up with swaggering rebels of all stripes.
For Zintan, the loss of this, its most important strategic asset—a prominent militiaman once boasted the airport was worth “a 1000 ministries”—is a huge blow. It upends what had been a delicate balance of power in Tripoli and raises the prospect of more violence to come.
“The battle is lost but the war has just begun,” a fighter from Zintan wrote in a Facebook post.
