By Jamal Adel.
Tripoli, 18 May 2014:
The Omar Al-Mukhtar Brigade withdrew from Kufra about a week ago after local elders failed to . . .[restrict]arrest and hand over locals who had carried out an attack against the brigade’s checkpoints in the town.
“Some members of the Zuwai tribe attacked a group from the Omar Al-Mukhtar Brigade at a checkpoint and took over their vehicles and weapons two weeks ago,” a Kufra local told the Libya Herald.
Omar Al-Mukhtar leaders entered into negotiations with town elders to see that the perpetrators were handed over, but they were not successful. In response, Omar Al-Mukhtar commander Zeyad Balam ordered the brigade to quit from the town.
“The Omar Al-Mukhtar members who withdrew from Kufra are now based at the Man Made River (MMR) compound outside of the Al-Shula Oil in Sarir. They are probably headed to Benghazi,” Petroleum Facility Guard (PFG) member in Sarir, Mohammed Waday, told this paper.
It has been reported that the interim government ordered Zeyad Balam to secure Benghazi in a decision issued yesterday.
The Malik Unit of the Omar Al-Mukhtar Brigade commanded by Balam arrived in Sarir and Kufra in February following two months of bloody clashes between the indigenous Tebu minority and the Arab Zuwai tribes in January and February.
The fighting, though centred in Kufra extended further into the Sarir area 400 kilometres north of Kufra. [/restrict]
