Zintan News

Libya reopened its oil port of Hariga on Tuesday, ending a strike by guards that had threatened to further slash exports as rival factions fight for control of the OPEC country. The threat to shut down Hariga underlined the fragility of oil shipments as two competing governments and their armed allies are locked in a scramble for territory and petroleum wealth. Hariga reopened shortly before the United Nations was expected to hold talks to prevent a wider conflict that Western governments fear will turn Libya into a failed state just across the Mediterranean from Europe. Libya shut most operations at the Hariga terminal near Egypt's border, the last functioning land oil export terminal, on Saturday after security guards prevented a tanker from docking in a protest over wage payments.

A Libyan warplane from forces loyal to the internationally recognised government bombed a Greek-operated oil tanker anchored off the coast, killing two crewmen in an escalation of hostilities between factions vying to rule the country. Military officials said the vessel had been warned not to enter port and said it had been transporting Islamist militants to Derna, the eastern port city where the ship was at anchor when it was hit on Sunday. State oil firm NOC said it had leased the ship to carry fuel for power generation to Derna from Brega, an oil port to the west. The vessel was damaged but none of the 12,600 tonnes of heavy oil leaked out, the Athens-based operator Aegean Shipping Enterprises Co. said.

Clashes in Libya spread from Tripoli to the western town of Zawiya near Tunisia's border, where a large oil port is located, killing four people over the last two days, local town council officials said on Thursday. Foreign governments have mostly closed their embassies and evacuated staff after three weeks of clashes turned Libya's two main cities - Tripoli and Benghazi - into warzones in the worst fighting since the NATO-backed war against Muammar Gaddafi. Three years after Gaddafi's fall…

Diplomats flee Libyan chaos; Politicians appeal for international intervention. Clashes in Tripoli, Benghazi kill around 160 over two weeks, while Libyan capital face fuel, power shortages. A rocket hit a fuel storage tank in a chaotic battle for Tripoli airport that has all but closed off international flights to Libya, leaving fire-fighters struggling to extinguish a giant conflagration. Foreign governments have looked on powerless as anarchy sweeps across the North African oil producer, three years after NATO bombardment helped topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi. They have urged nationals to leave Libya and have pulled diplomats out after two weeks of clashes among rival factions killed nearly 160 people in Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi.

Crude output slips for first time since port deal; fresh clashes in Tripoli and Benghazi. Brega oil port seen open in few days. A twin suicide bombing at a Libyan army base in Benghazi killed at least four solders in an escalation of clashes between Islamist militants and regular forces battling to oust them from the eastern city. A first attacker blew himself up at the entrance to Benghazi's special forces headquarters, allowing a second suicide bomber to detonate his explosives at the base and kill at least four troops, a security source said. Suicide bombings are rare in Libya, where a fragile government is struggling to impose order. Tripoli and Benghazi are now caught up in some of the fiercest fighting between rival armed groups since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Libya may have averted a state collapse by striking a deal with eastern rebels to reopen occupied oil ports, but technical delays and simmering federalist dissent threaten to disrupt production once again. On Sunday, Libya's fragile government reached an agreement with Ibrahim al-Jathran, the leader of eastern rebels, to reopen two oil ports they were holding and lift a nine-month blockade crippling crude exports. Under the deal, Hariga and Zueitina ports will reopen immediately, with the larger Ras Lanuf and Es Sider terminals to be freed by Jathran's men in less than four weeks after more negotiations. Nearly three years after dictator Muammar Gaddafi's fall…

Former Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan has fled to Europe after parliament voted him out of office on Tuesday over his failure to stop rebels exporting oil independently in a brazen challenge to the nation's fragile unity. Zeidan was in Malta for two hours late on Tuesday on a short stop before going to "another European country", Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told state-owned television TVM. Government sources in Malta said he had left via a private plane bound for Germany, but the German authorities could not confirm he had arrived.