Militia loyal to the Tripoli authorities were advancing on eastern Libya today where rebels demanding regional autonomy began exporting oil this week in defiance of the central government.
The offensive came as Islamists buoyed by parliament's ouster of liberal-backed prime minister Ali Zeidan yesterday moved to consolidate their new-found power.
The premier fled the country as the General National Congress approved the Islamist-sponsored no-confidence motion, stopping briefly in Malta before flying on to another European country, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.
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The GNC named Defence Minister Abdullah al-Thani caretaker premier for the two weeks it now has to agree on a permanent successor.
But as Zeidan complained repeatedly while in office, real power over the armed forces lies not with the defence minister, but with GNC president Nuri Abu Sahmein, who on Monday ordered the assault on the rebel-held ports.
In the absence of a large enough regular army force to take on the heavily armed rebels, the advance guard of the task force is composed largely of militia loyal to the GNC.
Rebel fighters of the Cyrenaica Defence Force pulled back to the eastern region's historic border yesterday after militiamen of the Libya Shield Force pushed them out of the central coastal city of Sirte, a rebel commander told AFP.
The commander warned that the offensive by the fighters, mostly from Libya's third city Misrata, risked plunging the North African country back into civil war.
The advancing force was "a tribal militia, not a regular army unit", he said, asking not to be identified.
"Our forces have pulled back to Wadi Lahmar," some 90 kilometres east of Sirte, he added.
The town lies on the historic border between Tripolitania and the Cyrenaica region, whose pre-1963 autonomy the rebels want restored.
The chairman of Sirte city council, Abdelfattah al-Siwi, said there had been a "brief confrontation" between the rival fighters before the rebels withdrew.
The opposing forces were allies during the NATO-backed uprising of 2011 which ended the 42-year dictatorship of Moamer Kadhafi, who made his last stand in Sirte, his home town.
