Gunmen assassinate Haftar militia commander in Libya

Gunmen assassinated an eastern Libyan commander wanted for war crimes on Wednesday, underscoring the risks of violent escalation on the ground that poses the biggest challenge to Libya’s new unity government.

Mahmoud al-Werfalli was shot from a car outside a hospital in Benghazi alongside two of his bodyguards, military sources said, amid growing friction between rival factions in eastern Libya.

Werfalli was a commander in an elite unit attached to Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), a coalition of forces that has dominated eastern Libya in recent years.

The general command of the Libyan National Army (LNA), the force that controls most of eastern Libya, said the commander, Mahmoud al-Werfalli, was being investigated by a military prosecutor.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has indicted Werfalli twice for the suspected killing of more than 40 captives, including in a 2018 incident in which photographs appeared to show him shooting 10 blindfolded prisoners.

This month, he was shown in a widely circulated video raiding a car showroom in Benghazi alongside his uniformed men, smashing up furniture and computers as they brandished weapons.

Edited by Olajumoke Adeleke