Tensions rise as Tripoli residents urge fighters out

Libya: Tensions are rising in Tripoli as increasingly frustrated residents call on hundreds of armed Libyan fighters who stayed in the city after the fall of Moamer Kadhafi to leave.

Fighters from across Libya flooded into the capital in late August to help overthrow Kadhafi’s 42-year regime and many have stayed put, provoking concern among many residents and raising fears over the capital’s future stability.

Militia fighters from cities such as Misrata and Zintan man checkpoints around the city, wander the streets with automatic rifles and speed through city roads in pick-up trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.

Residents blame them for eruptions of automatic gunfire that still echo through the streets of Tripoli every night.

“It’s time for these people to go home. They do not belong here,” Tripoli resident Hamza Bonwara, 27, told AFP as he strolled with friends around the capital’s Martyrs’ Square, renamed from Green Square after Kadhafi’s ouster.

“They don’t care about Tripoli. They are always carrying their guns around and firing them into the air - It’s dangerous.

AFP