Tripoli militias have staged an attempted coup against Libya’s United Nations-backed government, seizing key state buildings and a TV station and pledging they are ready to fight to take power. After capturing the central Rixos hotel, home of the government’s state council assembly, on Friday night, the plotters issued a televised statement declaring the coup a “historic initiative to rescue Libya”. The coup unfolded after militias from the plotters and the GNA confronted each other around the Rixos, a complex of administrative buildings, with GNA forces pulling back in the late afternoon without violence. In its statement, the plotters declared the GNA was now “void” and had been replaced by the salvation government. Libya has been in turmoil since forces from the elected parliament in Tobruk, which opposes both Tripoli governments, captured four key central oil ports from pro-GNA forces in September.

Source: The Guardian October 15, 2016 01:18 UTC