By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 24 May 2015:
The Libya National Army (LNA) this afternoon attacked and set on fire a Libyan oil . . .[restrict]tanker unloading fuel at Sirte. One member of 26 crew is said to have been wounded as was also a worker at the port.
There are conflicting accounts of what the tanker, the Anwaar Afriqya was carrying and for whom.
The head of the LNA’s air force, Saqr Geroushi, was initially quoted by Reuters saying that it was unloading fighters and weapons, that it was unflagged and that it had been told to stop heading towards the town, controlled by Islamic State (IS) supporters, but ignored the warning.
He said the ship was now on fire. Other reports appear to confirm this.
Libya Dawn, the state electricity company GECOL and oil industry officials, however, say that the tanker was carrying fuel from Greece (the figure is put variously at 25,000 and 40,000 tonnes) for the power station in Sirte.
The claim appears to tally with information from maritime tracking website marinetraffic.com which shows its last port of call as Pireaus.
The LNA now claims that the tanker was carrying fuel not for the power station, which unlike the town is still controlled by Libya Dawn, but petrol for Dawn forces.
Two weeks ago, LNA jets attacked a Turkish vessel, killing one of the crew, off Derna, also controlled by IS. [/restrict]
