By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 18 January 2014:
At an emergency GNC sitting to discuss security in the south, the overwhelming majority of members . . .[restrict]backed the declaration of a nationwide High Security Alert – in effect calling for a general mobilisation of the armed forces.
Ninety-four of 102 members today voted in favour of the alert after hearing reports that Qaddafi supporters had seized a southern airbase. The sitting was held on the instructions of GNC president Nuri Abu Sahmain.
A pre-debate statement on security developments in their region, promised by southern congress members did not appear.
Congresswoman Nadia Rashid, an independent GNC member for Obari in Fezzan, told the Libya Herald that she understood the current situation to be “very, very dangerous, as there are no state forces present in the south to protect civilians from the current situation”.
She claimed that “Saadi Qaddafi in Niger and Isa Abdul Majeed are behind what is happening now in the South”. She added, “If the South is occupied, Libya will be occupied too”.
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