Airstrike death toll in Libya’s besieged capital rises to 30

The death toll from an airstrike that slammed into a military facility in Libya’s capital climbed to at least 30 people, most of them military trainees, health authorities said Sunday, as fighting over control of Tripoli between rival armed groups escalated.

Eastern Libyan forces led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter launched an offensive in April to take the capital from the weak but U.N.-supported government. Libya is governed by rival authorities in the east and in Tripoli in the west, with each relying on different militias.

The airstrike hit a military academy used by the Tripoli-allied militias late Saturday in the Hadaba area, just south of the city center, the health ministry of the Tripoli-based government said. Fighting and shelling between the two sides has been raging for months in the area.

In this Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 photo, personal items remain on the ground at the site of an airstrike on a military academy in Tripoli, Libya. Health officials said the death toll from the airstrike climbed to at least 30 people, most of them students and over 30 others were wounded. The airstrike took place in the city's south late Saturday, an area which has seen heavy clashes in recent months. Forces based in eastern Libya and led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter have been fighting to seize the capital from the weak but U.N.-supported government. (AP PhotoHazem Ahmed)

The U.N.-supported Libyan government blamed the airstrike on Hifter's self-styled Libyan National Army. A spokesman for the LNA did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

Hifter has declared a “final” and decisive battle for the capital. That followed a military and maritime agreement Tripoli authorities signed with their ally Turkey calling for the deployment of Turkish troops to Libya.

Turkey’s parliament on Thursday authorized sending forces to Libya to support Tripoli authorities. Libya's eastern-based parliament condemned the move along with other regional and world powers, including Saudi Arabia, which on Saturday called it a threat to Arab and regional security, according to the kingdom's official news agency.

In this Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020 photo, personal items remain at the site of an airstrike on a military academy in Tripoli, Libya. Health officials said the death toll from the airstrike climbed to at least 30 people, most of them students and over 30 others were wounded. The airstrike took place in the city's south late Saturday, an area which has seen heavy clashes in recent months. Forces based in eastern Libya and led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter have been fighting to seize the capital from the weak but U.N.-supported government. (AP PhotoHazem Ahmed)

Ghassan Salame, the U.N. envoy to Libya, said Turkish troops on the ground would further diminish chances for ending the violence.

Salame expects the warring Libyan groups to meet for peace talks in Germany in mid-January.

The ambulance service in Tripoli said the airstrike also wounded at least 33 people. It posted images of dead bodies and those wounded being treated at a hospital.

The U.N. Support Mission in Libyan condemned in “the strongest terms” the attack. It warned in a statement against "growing escalation” in the violence.

Separately, an LNA official said a drone strike Sunday killed three troops at an LNA airbase in western Libya. The official blamed the Tripoli-allied militias for the attack, which he said used a Turkish-made drone. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Tripoli's siege has killed hundreds of people, mostly combatants, and displaced thousands of families in the city and the surrounding areas.

The conflict threatens to plunge Libya into levels of chaos rivaling the 2011 uprising that ousted and later killed its ruler, Moammar Gadhafi.

France, Egypt, Russia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and other key Arab countries support Hifter and his allies in the east. The Tripoli-based government is backed by Qatar, Italy and Turkey.

Last month, U.N. experts in a report to the U.N. Security Council said that “Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates routinely and sometimes blatantly supplied weapons, with little effort to disguise the source” in violation of the U.N. arms embargo.

The U.N. panel said neither side in Libya has “the military capability” to win the stalemated conflict.

BEIRUT (AP) — Leaked photographs of the son of Libya’s late dictator Moammar Gadhafi and the tiny underground cell where he has been held for years in Lebanon have raised concerns in the north African nation as Libyan authorities demand improvements.

The photos showed a room without natural light packed with Hannibal Gadhafi’s belongings, a bed and a tiny toilet. “I live in misery,” local Al-Jadeed TV quoted the detainee as saying in a Saturday evening broadcast, adding that he is a political prisoner in a case he has no information about.

Two Lebanese judicial officials confirmed to The Associated Press on Monday that the photographs aired by Al-Jadeed are of Gadhafi and the cell where he has been held for years at police headquarters in Beirut. Gadhafi appeared healthy, with a light beard and glasses.

A person who is usually in contact with Gadhafi, a Libyan citizen, said the photos were taken in recent days. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media outlets.

Gadhafi has been held in Lebanon since 2015 after he was kidnapped from neighboring Syria, where he had been living as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information about the fate of prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr, who went missing during a trip to Libya in 1978.

The fate of al-Sadr has been a sore point in Lebanon. His family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison, though most Lebanese presume al-Sadr, who would be 95 now, is dead.

A Libyan delegation visited Beirut in January to reopen talks with Lebanese officials on the fate of al-Sadr and the release of Gadhafi. The talks were aimed at reactivating a dormant agreement between Lebanon and Libya, struck in 2014, for cooperation in the probe of al-Sadr. The delegation did not return to Beirut as planned.

The leaks by Al-Jadeed came after reports that Gadhafi was receiving special treatment at police headquarters and that he had cosmetic surgeries including hair transplants and teeth improvements. Al-Jadeed quoted him as saying: “Let them take my hair and teeth and give me my freedom.”

Gadhafi went on a hunger strike in June last year and was taken to a hospital after his health deteriorated.

Libya’s Justice Ministry in a statement Sunday said Gadhafi is being deprived of his rights guaranteed by law. It called on Lebanese authorities to improve his living conditions to one that “preserves his dignity," adding that Lebanese authorities should formally inform the ministry of the improvements. It also said Gadhafi deserves to be released.

After he was kidnapped in 2015, Lebanese authorities freed him but then detained him, accusing him of concealing information about al-Sadr’s disappearance.

Al-Sadr was the founder of the Amal group, a Shiite militia that fought in Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war and later became a political party that is currently led by the country’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Many of al-Sadr’s followers are convinced that Moammar Gadhafi ordered al-Sadr killed in a dispute over Libyan payments to Lebanese militias. Libya has maintained that the cleric, along with two traveling companions, left Tripoli in 1978 on a flight to Rome.

Human Rights Watch issued a statement in January calling for Gadhafi’s release. The rights group noted that Gadhafi was only 2 years old at the time of al-Sadr’s disappearance and held no senior position in Libya as an adult.

FILE - In this undated file photo made available Sept. 25, 2011, Hannibal Gadhafi, son of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, watches an elite military unit exercise in Zlitan, Libya. Leaked photographs of Hannibal Gadhafi and the tiny underground cell where he has been held for years in Lebanon have raised concerns. Libyan authorities are demanding that Lebanon improves living conditions for Gadhafi. (AP Photo/Abdel Magid al-Fergany, File)