The forces of the National Accord government took control of the city of Al-Asaba, in the western mountain, and continued to hit the positions of retired Major General Khalifa Haftar's forces in the city of Tarhuna as a prelude to storming them, while Turkey warned Haftar against the consequences of targeting its interests in Libya.
After the cities of the West Coast, foremost of which are Sabratha and Sorman, then Al-Wattia Air Force Base and the towns of Badr and Tiji, Al-Wefaq forces managed today to subdue the fingers (120 km southwest of Tripoli) due to limited clashes and air strikes that killed people in the ranks of Haftar loyalists, and they previously controlled Nearby Jendouba area.
A source from Al-Wefaq forces told Al-Jazeera correspondent that the progress towards Al-Asaba - which is located south of Gharyan - was launched from several axes with heavy and medium weapons, amid weak resistance from Haftar's forces before restoring the city, which was known to support the former regime before it allied with Haftar.
Continuous progress
After subjecting the fingers, Al-Wefaq forces moved south towards Mazda and Nesma, where are the methods of supplying weapons and equipment to Haftar forces in the city of Tarhuna (80 km south of Tripoli).
Yesterday evening, the internationally recognized government air force carried out new strikes on military targets in Tarhuna, which resulted in deaths and injuries, including the militants stationed in it. Concurrently, Al-Wefaq forces strengthened their positions on the outskirts of the city.
A spokesman for the Al-Wefaq government, Berkane Fury, said yesterday that their forces would soon launch a military operation to control Tarhuna, a month after an unsuccessful attempt.
Al-Wefaq forces destroyed six Russian air defense systems yesterday for Haftar forces in Tarhuna, and the town of Al-Washaka, located between the cities of Sirte and Misrata, and the suburb of Souk Al-Ahad, south of Tripoli, while last night a system of the same type was expropriated after the control of the Al-Wataya base.
Warning for Haftar
On the other hand, the Turkish Foreign Ministry today warned Haftar's forces of grave consequences if they attacked Turkey's interests in Libya.
A spokesman for the ministry said that Turkey would consider Haftar's forces as legitimate targets if Turkish interests were targeted.
The Turkish warning comes after statements of Saqr al-Jarushi, chief of the Air Force Staff of Haftar Saqr, in which he said that the air force is about to carry out the largest air operation in the history of Libya, and that the coming hours will be painful for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his followers.
Al-Jaroushi considered that all Turkish sites and interests in all Libyan cities are a legitimate target for their weapons fighters and called on civilians to stay away from them, according to several news sites, including the most important site of the American Bloomberg Agency.
After targeting the vicinity of the Turkish embassy in Tripoli earlier this month, Ankara threatened to consider Haftar's forces a legitimate target in the event of such attacks.
Politically halting the fighting , Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that he made a telephone call to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşlu, during which he stressed the importance of an immediate cessation of hostilities in Libya and the resumption of the political process under the auspices of the United Nations.
A statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the two ministers also stressed the importance of the participation of all Libyan parties in the political process, in order to reach a solution to the Libyan crisis, on the basis of the decisions of the Berlin Conference adopted by the Security Council, as mentioned in the Russian statement.
This development comes in light of successive international calls to stop the military escalation in Libya, and the most recent calls were issued by the American, French, European Union and UN mission in Libya. In addition to Egyptian and Emirati statements, in turn, they talk about the political solution in Libya.