Libya’s UN-sponsored government says ready to take power

[bemildred]

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya’s U.N.-sponsored unity government says it is ready to take power, after receiving the endorsement of the previous, internationally backed government in the country’s east.

In a statement late Saturday, the Government of National Accord said a majority of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives had endorsed it, and it had begun urging financial and state institutions to recognize it exclusively as the country’s sole governing body.

Based in the Tunisian capital for now, the GNA aims to install itself in Tripoli but security concerns have delayed it. The city is controlled by an array of militias, some of which have openly threatened it.

The new government was formed after a year of peace talks sponsored by the United Nations between the Tobruk government and a rival, Islamist-backed one in Tripoli.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/libyas-un-sponsored-government-says-ready-to-take-power/2016/03/13/44c17598-e934-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f_story.html

[bemildred]

1. Tunisia border attack highlights risk of violence spilling over from Libya

Tunis/Algiers: The signal to attack came from the religious place, sending dozens of militants storming through the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdan to hit army and police posts in street battles that lit the dawn sky with tracer bullets.

Militants used a megaphone to chant slogans and reassure residents they were IS, there to save the town near the Libyan border from the "tyrant" army. Most were Tunisians themselves, with local accents, and even some familiar faces, officials and witnesses to Monday's attack said.

Hours later, 36 militants were dead, along with 12 soldiers and seven civilians, in an assault authorities described as an attempt by IS to carve out terrain in Tunisia.

Whether IS aimed to hold territory as they have in Iraq, Syria and Libya, or intended only to dent Tunisia's already battered security, is unclear and the group has yet to officially claim the attack.

http://timesofoman.com/article/79336/World/Middle-East/Tunisia-border-attack-highlights-risk-of-violence-spilling-over-from-Libya