A Libyan military warplane loyal to coup General Khalifa Hifter launched an offensive against Benghazi today, part of the ongoing offensive against Ansar al-Sharia, but didn’t hit what they claimed to have hit.
Gen. Hifter’s spokesman claimed the warplane attacked a palace belonging to the “Crown Prince,” that Ansar al-Sharia was using as its headquarters. The palace was conspicuously unharmed, however.
Rather, locals say that the warplanes’s rockets were fired at the engineering building of a nearby university, causing major damaging and wounding two people within.
Dean Nasser al-Aqouri confirmed the attack hit his university, saying the toll would’ve been far worse but luckily the missiles were fired shortly after the last lectures of the day had finished, so the building was largely empty.
Gen. Hifter has promised to “cleanse” Libya of Islamists, and took over parliament by force two weeks ago. Several militias have lined up against him in Tripoli, and the country seems to be moving back into a civil war.
Things are getting warm. Given Hifter's US pedigree, I expect some of the militias are preparing for a little more ambassador hunting.