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By Noora Ibrahim and Adam Ali.
Benghazi, 17 October 2014:
Isolated fighting has continued today in several parts of Benghazi in the wake of . . .[restrict]Wednesday’s fierce clashes. The continued conflict is particularly in those areas where local pro-government supporters are battling with Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council (BRSC).
Residents in the Maskeen district, where a number of Ansar Al-Sharia fighters have taken refuge over the past two days, reported fierce fighting in the area between 3 am and 10 am. They said at least three mortars had been fired from the area and were believed to have landed in the Laithi district.
Most Maskeen residents are said to have left. Only foreigners, largely Tunisians, Syrians and Palestinians, with nowhere else to go, appear to have remained behind.
Mohamed Hejazi, the spokesman for Operation Dignity, told the Libya Herald that Dignity forces were sweeping through Maskeein and collecting up improvised explosive devices which had been left by the retreating BRSC.
Fighting was also reported in Majouri and Buhdeima where masked gunmen from the locality have been enforcing vigilante justice, rounding up and sometimes killing alleged Islamist fighters or sympathisers.
Hejazi said supporters of the government should refrain from attacking the homes of those they suspected to be working with BRSC and should treat those captured as prisoners of war.
On Wednesday night four members of the same family were killed in their home for alleged involvement with the Islamist coalition. Today, three were killed in Majouri for the same reason.
Skirmishes have been reported in Twenty Street (Shara Ashreen), one of Benghazi’s main thoroughfares and in the city’s Hawatri District where Ahmed Al-Mismari, the spokesman for the General Chief of Staff, told this newspaper Ansar Al-Sharia had attempted to attack the Benghazi Security Directorate but had been eventually repulsed.
Targeted killings against members of the security services have continued in Benghazi despite the recent fighting. Ezzedine Barghati, a policemen, was reportedly shot and killed by unknown gunmen today away from those areas affected by the fighting. [/restrict]
