by WorldTribune Staff, July 7, 2016
A car bomb killed 11 troops of Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s force in Benghazi on July 6, the third attack in the Libyan city in recent weeks.
The bomb was set off as the soldiers held evening prayers on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, a military source said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The blast follows a car bomb targeting a security chief that killed two people on July 3 and a June 24 bombing that killed four civilians.
Haftar’s army drove Islamist fighters out of most of the city earlier this year. The general refuses to recognize a joint military command set by the U.N.-backed unity government in Tripoli, saying he still takes orders from a rival administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk.
Meanwhile, a MiG-23 fighter jet of Haftar’s air force crashed in the west of Benghazi on July 6, killing its pilot, a spokesman said.
“The crash was due to a technical fault,” Ahmad al-Mismari, spokesman of the Haftar-led army command, told AFP.