Tripoli (AFP) - Fighting broke out Tuesday in the capital of war-battered Libya between backers of two rival administrations, threatening renewed chaos in the oil-rich North African country.
The clashes erupted in Tripoli before dawn and heavy exchanges of fire were raging around 7 am (0500 GMT), an AFP correspondent reported.
Libya has been ruled by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, but he has been challenged by Fathi Bashagha, who was appointed as rival premier in February by the parliament in the country's eastern city of Tobruk.
Violence flared after his press service announced "the arrival of the prime minister of the Libyan government, Mr Fathi Bashagha, accompanied by several ministers, in the capital Tripoli to begin his work there".
There was no immediate reaction from the unity administration led Dbeibah, which was installed in 2020 as part of a troubled UN-backed peace process and which has since refused to step down.
The fighting raised fears of a return to the chaos that has reigned since a NATO-backed popular revolt in 2011 toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi, and an all-out conflict that gripped the capital in 2019-20.
Dbeibah's government was tasked with leading Libya to elections scheduled for last December, but these were indefinitely postponed and his political opponents argue that his mandate has now finished.
In February, the parliament in Tobruk designated former interior minister Bashagha as prime minister.But he has failed to oust Dbeibah, who has said repeatedly he will only cede power to an elected government.
In March, pro-Bashagha armed groups had already deployed on the edges of the capital, raising fears of a confrontation that would end a fragile ceasefire in place since October 2020.
Bashagha is backed by Khalifa Haftar, the eastern-based military strongman who led a failed bid to seize Tripoli in 2019-20, and who maintains control of several key oil installations.
Libya plunged into violent lawlessness in 2011 with the NATO-backed revolt that toppled Kadhafi.Armed groups have vied for control of territory as a string of interim governments have come and gone.
Many such groups have been integrated into the state, partly in order to access a share of the country's vast oil wealth, and human rights organisations have often accused them of abuses.
The creation of two governments echoes Libya's troubled period of rival administrations between 2014 and 2021, when the oil-rich nation was ripped apart by civil war.
Oil production, the country's main source of income, has again been hit by political rifts with a wave of forced closures of oil terminals by groups aligned with the eastern camp, who want power transferred to Bashagha.
