By Ashraf Abdul Wahab
Tripoli, April 11
It is reported that the Zintan brigade that has been in control of Tripoli International Airport . . .[restrict]since the liberation of Tripoli last year has started handing it over to the Interior and Defence Ministries.
Airport sources revealed that the hand over started on Monday evening.
A spokesman for Mukhtar Al-Akhdar, in charge of the brigade at the airport, told reporters that the Defence Ministry had already assumed duties inside the airport and that a special committee appointed by the Interior Ministry to make an inventory of all airport property had been scheduled to arrive on Monday, April 9. However, it did not turn up.
The spokesman also said out that the Transport Ministry had agreed to enlist around 300 members of the battalion, some of whom were from Zintan, Souq Al-Juma and Tajoura, while another 300 members would be given jobs at different areas of the airport.
The issue of employing members of the brigade at the airport has been the main stumbling block in the handover. The brigade had agreed to hand over the airport on March 25 but the agreement collapsed at the last minute when the Interior Ministry refused brigade demands that it employ 500 of its members there. They then stayed put, at which point Al-Akhdar announced he was resigning — but in the event did not do so.
It was also reported yesterday by a representative of the brigade that airport security watchtowers had been handed over to the government.
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