Libya's LNA Launches Operation Near Southern Border after Chad Clashes

Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari. (AFP file photo)
Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari. (AFP file photo)
TT

Libya's LNA Launches Operation Near Southern Border after Chad Clashes

Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari. (AFP file photo)
Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari. (AFP file photo)

Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) has launched a military operation to secure the southern border, it said on Friday, after fighting near the area resumed between the government of Chad and a rebel group trying to unseat it.

Chad's President Mahamat Idriss Deby said on Sunday that the army was again fighting the Libya-based Chadian Front for Change and Concord (FACT) group, which quit a ceasefire last week amid clashes.

LNA spokesperson Ahmed al-Mismari said the operation would involve land and air forces. An LNA media unit distributed photographs of Haftar's son, Saddam Haftar, overseeing the operation with other LNA officers.

The media unit said the LNA had expelled members of the Chadian opposition and their families from a residential area they were using in a desert town 300km (200 miles) north of the border with Chad.

Libya has had little internal peace or security since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising against Moammar al-Gaddafi, and its southern desert border has become a major transit route for trafficking networks.



Train Crash in Egypt Kills 1 and Injures More than 20 People

 A general view shows Egypt's Nile river and the the University bridge in the capital Cairo on November 11, 2022. (AFP)
A general view shows Egypt's Nile river and the the University bridge in the capital Cairo on November 11, 2022. (AFP)
TT

Train Crash in Egypt Kills 1 and Injures More than 20 People

 A general view shows Egypt's Nile river and the the University bridge in the capital Cairo on November 11, 2022. (AFP)
A general view shows Egypt's Nile river and the the University bridge in the capital Cairo on November 11, 2022. (AFP)

A locomotive crashed into the tail of the Cairo-bound passenger train Sunday in southern Egypt, killing at least one person and injuring multiple others, authorities said. It is the second train crash in a month in the North African country.

The collision occurred in the province of Minya, 270 kilometers (about 168 miles) south of Cairo, the railway authority said in a statement, and two railway carriages fell into an adjacent watercourse. The cause of the crash was being investigated, the statement added.

Footage aired by local media showed the two carriages partially submerged in the watercourse.

Along with the fatality, the Health Ministry said in a separate statement at least 21 people were taken to hospitals, of which 19 were later discharged after receiving treatment.

Train derailments and crashes are common in Egypt, where an aging railway system has also been plagued by mismanagement. In September, two passenger trains collided in a Nile Delta city, killing at least three people.

In recent years, the government announced initiatives to improve its railways. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in 2018 some 250 billion Egyptian pounds, or $8.13 billion, would be needed to properly overhaul the neglected rail network.