Dozens of gunmen kept Libya’s foreign ministry under siege for a second straight day yesterday demanding it sack officials from the regime of former Libyan leaderMuammar Qaddafi.
About 30 vehicles, some mounted with anti-aircraft guns, and armed men have encircled the ministry since Sunday. Placards calling for the adoption of a law aimed at political expulsions of Qaddafi-era officials hung on the gate of the ministry building yesterday.
“The ministry is closed,” said Aymen Mohamed Aboudeina, part of a group of protesters, adding that “talks will be initiated in the coming hours with the concerned ministries.”
He said the “siege” will be lifted when the protesters’ demands are met through a vote in the General National Congress — the highest political authority in Libya — on a bill calling for the expulsion of former regime employees.
On Sunday, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan denounced the encircling of the foreign ministry and other attacks targeting the interior ministry and the national television in Tripoli.
“These attacks will never get us down and we will not surrender,” he told reporters. “Those who think the government is frustrated are wrong. We are very strong and determined.”
He appealed to the people to support the government in resisting armed groups “who want to destabilize the country and terrorize foreigners and embassies,” but added that the government would “not come into confrontation with anyone”.
The congress is studying proposals for a law to exclude former Qaddafi regime officials from top government and political posts.
The proposed law could affect several senior figures in the government and has caused waves in the country’s political class.
Demonstrators last month encircled the assembly itself, trapping members in the building for several hours as they called for the adoption of the law.
After the siege was lifted, gunmen targeted congress head Mohammed Megaryef’s motorcade without causing any casualties.
The siege of the foreign ministry, coming just days after the French embassy in Tripoli was bombed, has raised fresh security fears in the capital and the German embassy has suspended some of its activities.
The German embassy reduced its activities, a spokesman said, after the prime minister’s assertion it had stopped work at its Tripoli mission.
“The German embassy continues to operate, but public access is temporarily restricted,” the spokesman said, declining to say how long the measures would remain in place.
Libya’s government is struggling to assert its influence across the country, where former rebels who fought Qaddafi in the 2011 uprising still control large amounts of territory.
Additional reporting by Reuters
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion