General's allies attack Libyan parliament

Group says legislature suspended; Tripoli government vows to continue work

In this image made from video provided by the Libyan national army via AP Television, Tripoli joint security forces on vehicles with heavy artillery stand guard on the entrance road to the parliament area after troops of Gen. Khalifa Hifter targeted Islamist lawmakers and officials at the parliament in Tripoli, Libya, Sunday, May 18, 2014. Forces loyal to a rogue Libyan general attacked the country's parliament Sunday, expanding his eastern offensive against Islamists into the heart of the country's capital. (AP Photo/Libyan national army)
In this image made from video provided by the Libyan national army via AP Television, Tripoli joint security forces on vehicles with heavy artillery stand guard on the entrance road to the parliament area after troops of Gen. Khalifa Hifter targeted Islamist lawmakers and officials at the parliament in Tripoli, Libya, Sunday, May 18, 2014. Forces loyal to a rogue Libyan general attacked the country's parliament Sunday, expanding his eastern offensive against Islamists into the heart of the country's capital. (AP Photo/Libyan national army)

TRIPOLI, Libya -- Forces apparently loyal to a renegade Libyan general said they suspended the country's parliament Sunday after earlier leading a military assault against lawmakers, directly challenging the legitimacy of the country's central government three years after the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Libya's leadership condemned the attack and vowed to carry on.

A commander in the military police in Libya read a statement announcing the suspension on behalf of a group led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a one-time rebel commander who said the U.S. backed his efforts to topple Gadhafi in the 1990s. Hours earlier, militia members backed by truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns and mortars attacked parliament, sending lawmakers fleeing as gunmen ransacked the legislature.

Gen. Mokhtar Farnana, speaking on a Libyan television channel on behalf of Hifter's group, said it assigned a 60-member constituents' assembly to take over for parliament. Farnana said Libya's current government would act as an emergency Cabinet, without elaborating.

Farnana, who is in charge of prisons operated by the military police, said forces loyal to Hifter carried out Sunday's attack on parliament. He said the attack was not a coup but "fighting by the people's choice."

"We announce to the world that the country can't be a breeding ground or an incubator for terrorism," said Farnana, who wore a military uniform and sat in front of Libya's flag.

Early today, Libya's interim government condemned the attack on parliament and largely ignored the declaration by the general's group.

"The government condemns the expression of political opinion through the use of armed force," Libyan Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said in a statement. "It calls for an immediate end of the use of military arsenal ... and calls on all sides to resort to dialogue and reconciliation."

Militias that backed the country's interim government manned checkpoints around the capital late Sunday. Hifter's forces in Tripoli appeared concentrated around the road to the city's airport and its southern outskirts.

The attack on parliament, which al-Marghani said killed two people and wounded more than 50, came after an assault Friday by Hifter's forces on Islamist militias in the restive eastern city of Benghazi that authorities said left about 70 people dead. On Sunday, gunmen targeted the Islamist lawmakers and officials Hifter blames for allowing extremists to hold the country ransom, his spokesman Mohammed al-Hegazi told Libyan television station al-Ahrar.

"This parliament is what supports these extremist Islamist entities," al-Hegazi said. "The aim was to arrest these Islamist bodies who wear the cloak of politics."

The fighting spread to the capital's southern edge Sunday night and along the airport highway.

Libya's army and police rely heavily on the country's myriad militias, the heavily armed groups formed around ethnic identity, hometowns and religion that formed out of the rebel factions that toppled Gadhafi. Bringing them under control has been one of the greatest challenges for Libya's successive interim governments, one they largely failed at as militias have seized oil terminals and even kidnapped a former prime minister.

In the fighting Sunday, officials believe members of the al-Qaaqaa and Sawaaq militias, the largest in the capital, backed Hifter even though they operate under a government mandate. Al-Qaaqaa posted a statement on its official Facebook page saying it attacked parliament with Sawaaq because lawmakers supported "terrorism."

Islamist-backed parliamentary leader Nouri Abu Sahmein told Libyan television station al-Nabaa that parliament would convene Tuesday.

An official with the Libyan Revolution Operation Room, an umbrella group of militias in charge of security in the capital, said the gunmen "kidnapped" about 20 lawmakers and government officials. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief journalists.

Lawmakers said security officials tried to evacuate them before attackers breached parliament after warnings the building would be assaulted.

Libya's parliament is divided between Islamist and non-Islamist factions, with rival militias lining up behind them. Recently, Islamists backed the naming of a new prime minister during walkouts from non-Islamists, who said the new government would be illegitimate.

Libya's new interim prime minister has not named a Cabinet. However, lawmaker Khaled al-Mashri told al-Ahrar that attackers wanted to prevent parliament from picking a new Cabinet as a list of nominees reached legislators Sunday.

It's not clear which militias and political leaders support Hifter, but his offensive taps into a wider disenchantment among Libyans with the country's weak government. Backers include members of a federalist group that had declared an autonomous eastern government and seized the region's oil terminals and ports for months, demanding a bigger share of oil revenue.

The Health Ministry said Sunday that about 70 people were killed and 141 injured since fighting broke out Friday in Benghazi.

The militia in control of the oil-producing region south of the city said it isn't taking sides in the clashes.

"Our role is to protect the fields, the ports, the pipelines," said Ali Al-Hasy, a spokesman of the self-declared Executive Office for Barqa, which seeks self-rule for the country's eastern region known also as Cyrenaica.

On Saturday, Hifter appeared before journalists in his military uniform and promised he would press on with his Benghazi offensive despite warnings from the central government. They labeled his moves a coup attempt.

Hifter, a native of Benghazi, helped Gadhafi overthrow King Idris in 1969. He later served as his military chief of staff but was captured by Chadian forces in the late 1980s. Authorities in Chad later released him, and Hifter joined the National Front for the Salvation of Libya, the main Libyan opposition group at the time. Hifter later moved to Virginia and, in interviews with Arab media in the 1990s, described himself as building an armed force with U.S. assistance to "eliminate" Gadhafi and his associates.

He returned to Libya and briefly served as a commander of its fledgling national army after Gadhafi's death. In February, he re-emerged in Libya via an online video in which he addressed the nation while wearing his military uniform and standing in front of the country's flag and a map, proclaiming he intended to "rescue" the nation.

Authorities described the video as a coup attempt, though he never was arrested. Later, rumors circulated that he visited military bases in eastern Libya to rally support before launching his Benghazi offensive Friday.

Information for this article was contributed by Jon Gambrell and Maggie Michael of The Associated Press and by Maher Chmaytelli of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 05/19/2014

Upcoming Events