By Moutaz Mathi and Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 26 June 2016:
All heavy and medium weapons must be handed in to the police or the security forces, the Chief of Staff of the Libyan National Army (LNA), Major-General Abdul Razzaq Al-Nazhuri has ordered. Lighter guns must be registered. Those who do not comply, he said, risk arrest.
In a statement released tonight from the LNA headquarters in Marj, he added that all public gatherings must in future obtain police permission beforehand. He further stated any convoy of military vehicles moving without permission from the LNA would be attacked.
The measures were necessary in the fight against terrorism and to prevent weapons from spreading, he said.
Nazhuri was appointed military governor of all northern Cyrenaica, from Tobruk to Ben Jawad, last week by House of Representatives President Ageela Saleh.
“We hope residents will cooperate with these tight procedures issued by the army to help to overcome the current harsh situation and secure the return to work of the sovereign institutions,” he stated.
This was not a move to impose military rule, he said, but a neceesary move to help save Libya. The army, he insisted, would never allow it to collapse in any way.
He also warned that although terrorist groups were being defeated on the ground, they would try and reinvent themselves in new guises.
