By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 30 March 2014:
Ibrahim Jadhran and his “Cyrenaica Defence Forces” have withdrawn from Ajdabiya . . .[restrict]and moved west to Ras Lanouf according to a leading elder in the town, Saad Busamra. He told the Libya Herald by phone that the town was now calm after last week’s clashes between Jadhran’s forces and those loyal to the General Chief of Staff.
The spokesman for the “Cyrenaica government” appointed by Jadhran, Ali Al-Hassi, confirmed that Jadhran and Cyrenaica Force were now in Ras Lanouf and further west in Wadi Al-Ahmar, seen by federalists as the western border of Cyrenaica. However, he said – with an apparent degree of hesitation – some were still in Ajdabiya.
A reporter in Ajdabiya told this newspaper today that he could not “confirm or deny” that Jadhran had left. “We used to see him moving around”, but now he was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s disappeared. No one knows where he is,” the reporter said, adding that the Jadhran had not been spotted in the town since about three days after the discovery of the body of a pilot from the air force helicopter that vanished on 12 February.
“Just a few of his family know where he is,” the reported added.
Ten days ago, there were clashes in the town between Jadhran’s troops on the one side and the Hassan Al-Jaber Brigade and the mainly Zwai Shuhada Al-Jazeera Brigade (known as the Brigade No.121) on the other. The Hassan Al-Jaber Brigade pulled out at the request of the head of the Magharba tribe, but according to Busamra, Jadhran then tried to take over the Brigade 121. He then gave up.
The situation is quiet in the town, he said, although the local Council of Elders was still working hard to maintain that calm. The two sides that had fought each other last week, he said, were brothers.
The Zwai and the Maghraba are the two biggest tribes in Ajdabiya, with roughly equal numbers and together accounting for the majority of the its population. [/restrict]
