The Libyan Parliament-appointed Prime Minister, Fathi Bashagha, was on Tuesday, forced to flee from the capital Tripoli when he tried to forcefully take over government as clashes erupted between his supporters and those of a rival administration that has refused to cede power, Libyan authorities said.
Bashagha had entered Tripoli on Monday night after two months of stalemate between Libya’s rival administrations, but was forced to withdraw hours later as fighting rocked the capital, his office said in a statement.
A news report by a local media said that the crisis risks plunging Libya back into prolonged fighting after two years of relative peace, or returning it to partition between the eastern-backed government of Bashagha and a Tripoli-based administration under Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah.
The political impasse that has bedevilled the North African country in the last two years has already led to a partial blockade of Libya’s oil facilities with the National Oil Company (NOC), last month, suspending operations at two of the country’s major oil sites, the Zouetina terminal and the al-Charara field, after shutting down several other facilities in connection with protests and political rivalries.
According to local media, sounds of heavy weapons and automatic gunfire were heard on across the capital on Tuesday morning, while schools were hurriedly cancelled and the normally heavy rush hour traffic was sparse.
Sporadic shooting continued even after Bashagha left, but security experts believe things may not return to normalcy.
“I don’t think things will just return to being cool and static and relaxed,” a Libya security expert, Jalel Harchaoui, said.
But Harchaoui believes wider escalation of violence is unlikely given Bashagha’s hurried withdrawal from Tripoli after fighting had broken out.