Mitiga International Airport in Tripoli has been bombarded by numerous rockets launched by the loyalists of Libya’s military commander Khalifa Haftar.
The attack occurred on May 9th, hitting the plane that was ready to retrieve Libya’s citizens from the pandemic lockdown in Spain, says Al Jazeera. There were no immediate reports of the victims, but the eyewitnesses filmed pillars of tar-black smoke over the airport and shrapnel damage on a passenger aircraft. Several fuel tanks have reportedly been hit as well.
Tripoli, the capital of Libya, is the seat of the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA). The renegade Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) have been trying to overtake Tripoli for a year now, and their attacks have become so frequent that the country had to stop all the civilian flights in March. The recently targeted Mitiga remained the only active airport in Tripoli.
The airport shelling follows another attack blamed on LNA in which five civilians have been killed. This tragedy prompted GNA to launch an operation to seize the al-Watiya airbase in Tripoli from Haftar’s forces.
