Libyan militia commander Khalifa Hifter in 2017. (Ivan Sekretarev/AP)Forces led by Khalifa Hifter, known as the Libyan National Army, pushed west toward Tripoli on Friday, after Hifter announced his intention to seize the city. Hifter spent the next two decades rising through the ranks of the Libyan military, and in the 1980s he was a commander in the country’s conflict with Chad. Hifter became prominent in the Front’s military component — the Libyan National Army. Then, in 2014, he announced a military coup via video address, complaining that the central government had not done enough to take on increasingly powerful armed Islamist groups.

Source: Washington Post April 06, 2019 16:18 UTC