DOHA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th January, 2020) The Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Fayez Sarraj, has violated the ceasefire announced at midnight on Sunday, however the rival Libyan National Army (LNA) has not officially issued a statement, media reported.
"The groups [of GNA forces] have violated the ceasefire with the deployment of all types of weapons, in particular, artillery in more than one direction, but we are still committed to the statement made by the general command of operations in the west of the country about the intention to observe the ceasefire and are awaiting new instructions," the Libyan Al-Marsad newspaper quoted LNA's Maj. Gen. Al-Mabrouk Al-Ghazawi as saying.
At the same time, the Libyan National Army has not made any official announcement yet.
In response, the GNA accused the rival army headed by Marshal Khalifa Haftar of violating the just-announced ceasefire in western Libya, according to Al Jazeera broadcaster,
"Haftar's forces violated a ceasefire on the Salah al-Din [front] line in Tripoli," the channel quoted the GNA's military sources as saying.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Erdogan, agreed on a common stance on Libya and called for a comprehensive ceasefire starting midnight January 12. They also urged all conflict parties to begin negotiations.
The situation in Libya has escalated over the past several weeks as the Libyan National Army's commander Khalifa Haftar ordered his troops to advance on Tripoli, controlled by the UN-recognized Government of National Accord. The city has already experienced being a battleground of a similar attack in April that had left hundreds of people killed and thousands more injured.
After the ouster and assassination of then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the country was plunged into a brutal civil war. Today, Libya is divided between two centers of power: an elected parliament in the country's east, and the UN-backed GNA in the west.
