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By Libya Herald staff.
Tripoli, 18 October 2014:
The Libyan National Army (LNA) has claimed that its troops moved into the Warshefana town . . .[restrict]of Zahra today, meeting no resistance from Libya Dawn forces. They were nowhere to be seen, a senior official in the LNA’s Western Region operations room told the Libya Herald.
The operations room was set up in Sorman last month by the Chief of Staff Major-General Abdul-Razaq Nazhuri under the control of Brigadier Idris Madi.
The source said that the forces had moved into the strategically important town, 40 kilometers southwest of Tripoli and which fell to Libya Dawn forces last month, after taking control of the Warshefana area of Nasiriya. The operation, he claimed, was being coordinated by the Chief of Staff himself.
The source also added that the troops were now poised to move to Zawia.
The LNA forces are believed to be mainly Zintanis from the Qaaqaa and Sawaiq brigades, with Warshefana units alongside but there are also unconfirmed reports of regular LNA soldiers being among them.
Officially, according to the Chief of Staff, the two Zintani brigades are part of the LNA.
There has been no confirmation of the LNA assertion and claims yesterday by Brigadier Madi to have moved into the area were immediately denied by Libya Dawn who insisted that its still controlled the entire Warshefana district. Similarly, reports that Misratan units had pulled out of the area following a dispute with those from Zawia and Janzour have not been confirmed.
The claims and counter-claims are part of the intensifying propaganda struggle taking place at present in Libya which bears remarkable similarity to the efforts by the Qaddafi regime to control the news.
The accuracy of information coming from the western battlefront is hard to assess with neither side willing to give a full account of what is happening. [/restrict]
