Benghazi clashes kill 30; Tripoli fire rages on

BENGHAZI: Libyan forces on Tuesday battled militants with rockets and warplanes for control of an army base in the eastern city of Benghazi after at least 30 people were killed in overnight fighting.
Intense fighting in Benghazi, Libya’s second city, and battles between rival militias in the capital Tripoli have pushed Libya deeper into chaos after two weeks of the fiercest violence since the 2011 civil war ousted Muammar Qaddafi.
Foreign states followed the United States and the United Nations in pulling diplomats out of the North African oil-producing state after clashes between two rival brigades of former anti-Qaddafi fighters closed Tripoli’s international airport.
“Groups of terrorists calling themselves Al-Shoura Council Forces are attacking the government’s main military base,” Col. Wanis Bukhamada, a special forces spokesman in Benghazi, told Reuters. “We have received 30 corpses so far,” a medical source told Reuters at Benghazi’s main hospital.
A government MiG warplane crashed during Tuesday’s fighting in Benghazi. A Reuters reporter saw the pilot parachuting to ground after hearing an explosion. A spokesman for Haftar’s forces said it was due to a technical problem.
A huge blaze was still raging at a fuel depot near Tripoli’s airport on Tuesday.
Amid increasing lawlessness and uncertainty, France, Portugal and the Netherlands became the latest nations to ship out their citizens or close their embassies in Tripoli.