REVISES HEADLINE, LEDE, ADDS CHANGES THROUGHOUT
By Aydogan Kalabalik and Baris Seckin
TRIPOLI/ROME (AA) – At least three people, including a civilian, were killed when forces loyal to Libyan renegade commander Khalifa Haftar carried out rocket attacks in the capital and a nearby area, the government said early Friday.
Rockets struck the port of Tripoli, Mitiga International Airport and a coastal road, said Mustafa al-Mujie, the spokesman for the government’s Operation Volcano of Rage.
Amin al-Hashemi, a spokesman for the Health Ministry of Libya's UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), said two security staff and one civilian were killed and four others were injured in the attacks.
Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Taher Siala said in a statement that the attacks did not comply with international laws as they struck the coastal road near the residences of the Turkish and Italian ambassadors.
Condemning the attacks, Siala spoke by phone with Turkey and Italy’s ambassadors to Libya.
The Italian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the attacks. In a statement, it said the indiscriminate attacks were completely unacceptable.
At least six civilians were killed Wednesday when militias loyal to Haftar shelled Tripoli twice.
Following the ouster of late ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya’s government was founded in 2015 under a UN-led political deal. Since April 2019, the government has been under attack by Haftar’s forces, based in eastern Libya, and more than 1,000 people have been killed in the violence.
*Writing by Gozde Bayar
