After around six weeks of fierce battle to control Tripoli’s international airport and other key political and military assets, the Misrata backed armed forces managed late last week to dislodge the Zintan pro-Khalifa Hafter troops from the airport. It now looks like the two air strikes which targeted last week the Misrata-backed armed forces and which aimed to prevent them from capturing the airport have backfired. New York Times sources say both raids were launched by the UAE and Egypt. On the ground however, the Zintan Qaaqaa and Saiq brigades struggled to hold their positions because their supplies from the mountainous area of the Zintan tribe were cut by other tribes allied with the Misrata forces. Politically, the New York Times revelation would be an embarrassment to the pro-Hafter group and the parliament elected recently, in that Hafter had claimed his forces carried out the raids, while the new parliament called for foreign intervention during its first meeting in Tobruk, east of Benghazi. The outgoing General National Congress, which considers that no handover of powers took place between it and the new parliament, insists that it is still the legitimate authority and that the decisions of the new parliament in Tobruk are unconstitutional. The GNC have elected Omar Al Hassi as the new PM and equipped him with executive powers. With the GNC still holding together in control of Tripoli and other key sites while only 40 MPs met in Tobruk it is unclear how Hafter is going to bounce back from this military setback, especially since the Zintan forces are said to have been evicted from Tripoli. The GNC is calling, however, for a proper handover of powers to the new parliament in Tripoli as the Constitutional Declaration stipulates.
