KABUL (Reuters) - Three civilians were killed Saturday in an airstrike by a retired brigade of Khalifa Hifter on al-Sawani area south of the Libyan capital.
"One of the raids hit a house in the same area," said Mustafa al-Majai, spokesman for the government of national reconciliation forces.
Meanwhile, the Al-Wefaq Government's Field Medicine and Support Center announced that a citizen was injured in the shelling of Hifter's forces on Saturday morning at Mitiga airport, the only airport operating in Tripoli.
Mitiga International Airport announced that the bombing caused the suspension of air traffic for about three hours before resuming, adding that he was hit by a shell "in conjunction with the arrival of two flights." But an eyewitness said no one was hurt.
"I was inside the passenger terminal to book a ticket and I heard a big explosion," the witness told Reuters by telephone. "There was chaos and people tried to escape. I saw a number of cars destroyed and they were standing in front of the passenger terminal."
The fall coincided with the arrival of a flight from Buraq Airlines coming from Istanbul airport, and another Libyan Airlines from Madinah with 265 pilgrims on board, airport authorities said in its first statement.
Mitiga airport has been hit repeatedly since Hifter's forces launched an offensive to wrest control of Tripoli from the internationally recognized government.
The international airport is located inside an air base and serves as a replacement for Tripoli International Airport, which has been inactive since 2014.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General Ghassan Salama, head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, reiterated on several occasions his condemnation of the repeated strikes on Mitiga airport, stressing that the continued targeting may amount to a "war crime."