By Jamal Adel.
Tripoli, 29 December 2013:
In the wake of the recent Sarir and Ajdabiya incidents, tensions are on the rise in . . .[restrict]Kufra following the shooting two days ago of Husain Galma, a member of the army and a Tebu, while he was on his way to Friday prayers.
Hassan Ali, a local college student, told the Libya Herald that Galma was targeted by a sniper at 12.45 pm. Ali claimed that the sniper was from from the Bu Shouq district, which is inhabited mainly by members of the Zwai tribe, and that he had been trying to target any moving object inside Tebu areas for the previous three days.
Ali feared that that the situation in the town could deteriorate and lead to yet more fighting between the Zwai and Tebus. He said that a number of RPG had landed in the town’s Tebu-inhabited Shura district but there had been no injuries.
Longstanding rivalries in Kufra between Tebus and Zwai were kept under the surface by the Qaddafi regime, but with the present weak state, tensions have now been released to play out in the open, without any restraint by central authority.
Recently, the Tebus had been blockading the main road to Kufra, preventing people, food, medicine and fuel to the Sarir power station from getting through to Kufra. They had a series of demands, including more representative local governance and better electricity supply to marginal Tebu areas.
The shutting down of the power station had knock-on effects on electricity supply to the whole of Libya, including the capital Tripoli. [/restrict]
