Gulf of Sidra, Cyrenaica and Benghazi
The head of Derna’s local council, Fatah Allah Al Aouwami, escaped an attack on 19 October as he returned home from a mosque after morning prayers. According to unconfirmed reports, gunmen were waiting to ambush Al Aouwami outside his house, but were spotted by a neighbour. The gunmen subsequently fled the scene. Elsewhere, Press Solidarity reported that a grenade was thrown at the Muslim Brotherhood’s centre in Al Marj on 21 October and the Libyan Daily Irassa reported an armed robbery targeting staff atBenghazi’sBeninaInternationalAirport on 22 October.
The head of the Benghazi Local Council (BLC), Juma Sahli was reported to have tendered his resignation on 21 October, less than two months after taking office. Sahli cited the desperate situation over an inability to pay local salaries and the central government’s failure to fulfil promises of support to Benghazi, as reasons for his decision. He is the second BLC head to stand down since local council elections on 19 May.
The Libya Herald reported that dozens of demonstrators broke into the Benghazi headquarters of the Libya Al-Hurra TV channel on the evening of 21 October. According to the report the demonstrators were said to be members of the Warfalla tribe. They accused the station of not supporting Bani Walid in the present clash between it and the armed forces. The majority of Bani Walid’s inhabitants are Warfalla. Programming was suspended as a result of the attack. The station is closely linked to the Libyan revolution and was the first TV station to support the uprising in 2011.