ISIS Claims Responsibility for Libya Checkpoint Attack, GNA Arrests Perpetrators

Libyan security patrol on August 23, 2018 near the site of an attack on a checkpoint in the city of Zliten. (AFP)
Libyan security patrol on August 23, 2018 near the site of an attack on a checkpoint in the city of Zliten. (AFP)
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ISIS Claims Responsibility for Libya Checkpoint Attack, GNA Arrests Perpetrators

Libyan security patrol on August 23, 2018 near the site of an attack on a checkpoint in the city of Zliten. (AFP)
Libyan security patrol on August 23, 2018 near the site of an attack on a checkpoint in the city of Zliten. (AFP)

Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) vowed on Sunday to punish the perpetrators of last week’s terrorist attack against a security checkpoint east of the capital Tripoli on Thursday.

The GNA Justice Ministry said it will not allow the attackers to escape punishment, ordering the general prosecutor to take the necessary legal measures against them.

It urged society to “stand against terrorism and defeat it.”

Such crimes will only make the Libyans more determined to combat terror, it added.

The ISIS terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack, but it did not provide any evidence to support its claim.

On Saturday, GNA Interior Minister Abdulsalam Ashour announced that the perpetrators of the attack were arrested and investigations are underway with them.

The plotters themselves remain at large, he revealed, adding that all of the suspects are Libyan.

Preliminary investigations showed that they belong to ISIS.

The minister denied that the terror group had established a solid footing in Libya, saying that ISIS is taking advantage of the remote areas in the South to carry out its activities.

Ashour stressed that his ministry was working on halting terrorist acts in the country.

Thursday’s attack targeted a GNA special operations checkpoint.

It took place between the towns of Zliten and Khoms on the coastal road leading from Tripoli to the port city of Misrata, an area in which ISIS members are known to be operating, according to the Zliten mayor.



Evidence of Ongoing 'Crimes Against Humanity' in Darfur, Says ICC Deputy Prosecutor

A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo
A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo
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Evidence of Ongoing 'Crimes Against Humanity' in Darfur, Says ICC Deputy Prosecutor

A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo
A boy sits atop a hill overlooking a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, November 9, 2023. REUTERS/El Tayeb Siddig/File Photo

There are "reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity" are being committed in war-ravaged Sudan's western Darfur region, the deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) said.

Outlining her office's probe of the devastating conflict which has raged since 2023, Nazhat Shameem Khan told the UN Security Council that it was "difficult to find appropriate words to describe the depth of suffering in Darfur," AFP reported.

"On the basis of our independent investigations, the position of our office is clear. We have reasonable grounds to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity, have been and are continuing to be committed in Darfur," she said.

The prosecutor's office focused its probe on crimes committed in West Darfur, Khan said, interviewing victims who fled to neighboring Chad.

She detailed an "intolerable" humanitarian situation, with apparent targeting of hospitals and humanitarian convoys, while warning that "famine is escalating" as aid is unable to reach "those in dire need."

"People are being deprived of water and food. Rape and sexual violence are being weaponized," Khan said, adding that abductions for ransom had become "common practice."

"And yet we should not be under any illusion, things can still get worse."

The Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005, with some 300,000 people killed during conflict in the region in the 2000s.

In 2023, the ICC opened a fresh probe into war crimes in Darfur after a new conflict erupted between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The RSF's predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide two decades ago in the vast western region.

ICC judges are expected to deliver their first decision on crimes committed in Darfur two decades ago in the case of Ali Mohamed Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, known as Ali Kosheib, after the trial ended in 2024.

"I wish to be clear to those on the ground in Darfur now, to those who are inflicting unimaginable atrocities on its population -- they may feel a sense of impunity at this moment, as Ali Kosheib may have felt in the past," said Khan.

"But we are working intensively to ensure that the Ali Kosheib trial represents only the first of many in relation to this situation at the International Criminal Court," she added.