Unidentified warplanes today conducted four airstrikes near the Libyan capital of Tripoli, leaving one dead and five wounded, a spokesman for Libya's Islamist-allied militias and a militia commander said.
A series of mysterious airstrikes in Libya, which US officials have previously said were carried out by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have reinforced the perception that Libya has become a proxy battleground for larger regional struggles -- with Turkey and Qatar backing the Islamist militias and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE supporting their opponents.
The specter of regional intervention has cast a pall over the increasingly fractured country, which was plunged into turmoil following the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi but gave rise to a patchwork of heavily armed and increasingly unruly militias.
Mohammed al-Gharyani, spokesman for the Libya Dawn alliance, said the airstrikes targeted Gharyan, 50 miles south of Tripoli. He said militiamen told residents to leave targeted areas.
A militia commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the strikes targeted Libya Dawn ammunition warehouses and weapons depots, and were aimed at weakening its hold on the capital.
An umbrella group for the capital's Islamist militias called the Operation Room for Tripoli Revolutionaries said the raid was carried out by Emirati warplanes and described it as "a failure."
Libya currently has two rival parliaments and governments.
One is recently elected but based in Tobruk, where it moved after Islamist militias took control of both Tripoli and Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi. The previous Islamist-led parliament remains in Tripoli and is backed by the militias.
The Islamist takeover of the capital followed weeks of fighting that forced nearly a quarter million Libyans to flee their homes. In the final days of the battle for Tripoli in August, a set of mystery airstrikes targeted militant positions near the airport.
But the attacks failed to prevent the militias from taking control of the airport and cementing their hold on the capital.
US officials have said that the August airstrikes were carried out jointly by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates --with Egypt providing logistical support for Emirati warplanes. The Emirates has refused to comment on the allegations, and Egyptian officials have repeatedly denied the claims.
