(17 Mar 2012) The men at the checkpoint on the outskirts of Kufra - a desert town in southern Libya - are heavily armed.
They're members of the African Tabu tribe - and towards the end of March 2012 they've clashed with the powerful Arab tribe of al-Zwia in the remote border area where Libya, Chad and Sudan meet.
The region is a hub for the smuggling of African migrants, goods and drugs.
According to witnesses, tribal warfare there earlier this week left scores of civilians dead.
One ambulance worker told the Associated Press that 50 people were killed by rockets, mortars and gunfire rocking residential areas of Kufra.
Another witness said that shops were closed, no one could walk in the street, and that if one tribe took over a square, the other would open fire and drive it out.
The al-Zwia and the Tabu are old rivals.
The Tabu had long complained of discrimination under former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Since February 11, the fight has descended into an all-out confrontation with other smaller Arab tribes joining al-Zwia against the Tabu, residents of the area say.
Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the leader of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, said on March 22nd that Gadhafi's regime loyalists are "seeding sedition" in Kufra.
However, he declined to elaborate on which of the tribes are connected to the former regime.
NTC leaders often blame problems in post-revolutionary Libya on remnants of Gadhafi's regime, usually without proof.
Meanwhile, Salem Samadi, who heads a revolutionary militia and has tried to mediate a truce between the two sides, blamed the outbreak of violence on a fight over smuggling.
The damage to Kufra was apparent on March 25th.
Several buildings - including a schoolroom - appeared to have been hit by incoming fire.
Some residents even showed off a rocket which had purportedly failed to explode.
Others seemed disconsolate.
"There is no good, there is no good," said Khadija Gomaa Alsanusi, a member of the Tabu tribe.
"If there was good help, they (the Libyan government) would had offered it to us from the beginning. There is no more good."
At a local hospital, doctors tended to injured adults and children, purportedly also members of the Tabu tribe.
Another Tabu resident of Kufra told AP: "We are here, we do not have any other place to go, but if mercenaries or any outsider came to Kufra, I swear, I swear, we will sacrifice with our lives for the nation."
Meanwhile, residents were queuing on March 25th to fill up their cars with petrol.
During the previous week lines of trucks and cars carrying hundreds of families were seen streaming out of the town on the highway leading towards the populated areas of the coast - some 500 miles (800 kilometres) away.
***
On March 17th Mauritania said it had arrested former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi, who was one of the most prominent figures in the ousted regime of Moammar Gadhafi and is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Al-Senoussi helped direct efforts to quash the rebellion against Gadhafi's rule in 2011, and the ICC has indicted him, along with Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam, on charges of crimes against humanity.
Mauritania's state information agency said in a statement that al-Senoussi was arrested at the airport in the capital Nouakchott, upon arrival from the Moroccan city of Casablanca.
It said he was carrying a fake Malian passport.
A spokesman for Libya's ruling National Transitional Council, Mohammed al-Hareiz, said the arrest was not yet confirmed.
Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam was arrested in November 2011 by fighters in Libya's remote southern desert.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
