24 'armed Europeans' cross border from Libya to Tunisia

<p>By Adil Essabiti</p> <p>TUNIS (AA) – The Tunisian authorities have detained 24 “armed Europeans” who recently crossed into the country from Libya, according to local officials.</p> <p>“An armed group consisting of 13 French nationals attempted to cross the border in 4×4 vehicles at the Ras Jedir crossing on Sunday,” Interior Minister Abdelkarim Zbidi told reporters on Tuesday.</p> <p>According to Zbidi, members of the group had initially refused to surrender their weapons but were eventually persuaded to do so by the local authorities. </p> <p>In a separate incident, the minister added, 11 people of different European nationalities — holding diplomatic passports — had recently tried to enter Tunisian waters from Libya in two rubber life rafts.</p> <p>“The Tunisian navy confiscated their weapons and handed them over to the National Guard,” Zbidi said, without saying when exactly the incident had occurred.</p> <p>In a Monday statement, the French embassy in Tunis said the French nationals were members of a security detail attached to the French embassy in Libya.</p> <p>But according to local media reports, the visitors had come from the Libyan city of Garyan where they had been advising forces led by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar.</p> <p>Earlier this month, Haftar, who commands forces loyal to Libya’s eastern-based government, embarked on an ambitious campaign to capture Tripoli, where Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) is headquartered. </p> <p>On Monday, the GNA announced that at least 76 people had been killed near Tripoli in ongoing clashes between Haftar’s forces and those loyal to the GNA. </p> <p>Libya has remained beset by turmoil since 2011, when a bloody NATO-backed uprising led to the ouster and death of President Muammar Gaddafi after four decades in power.</p> <p>Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power: one in eastern Libya, with which Haftar is associated, and another in Tripoli, which enjoys UN recognition.</p>