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 A special forces officer said they had to abandon their main camp
in the southeast of Benghazi after coming under sustained attack
from a coalition of Islamist fighters and former rebel militias in
the city.
"We have withdrawn from the army base after heavy shelling," Saiqa
Special Forces officer Fadel Al-Hassi told Reuters.
A separate special forces spokesman confirmed the militants had
taken over the camp after the troops pulled out. Part of the area is
Camp 36 in the Bu Attni district and the special forces school.
Intense fighting in Benghazi, Libya's second city, and battles
between rival militias in the capital Tripoli have pushed the nation
deeper into chaos after two weeks of the fiercest violence since the
civil war which ousted Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Benghazi has been at the centre of fighting between special forces
and ex-rebel fighters of the Benghazi Shura Council who have joined
up with the Ansar al Sharia, a militant Islamist group, residents
said.
Ansar al Sharia, classified as a terrorist organisation by
Washington, has been blamed by authorities for attacking the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi in 2012 when the U.S. ambassador was killed.
 Special forces and some regular air force units had recently joined
forces with a renegade former army general, Khalifa Haftar, who had
launched a self-declared campaign to clear the city of Islamist
militants.
A government MiG warplane crashed during Tuesday's fighting in
Benghazi. A Reuters reporter saw the pilot parachuting to ground
after hearing an explosion.
Since clashes erupted two weeks ago, foreign states followed the
United States and the United Nations in pulling diplomats out of the
North African oil-producing state. Fighting in Tripoli between two
rival brigades of former anti-Gaddafi rebels closed the capital's
international airport.
A rocket hit a fuel depot near Tripoli airport two days ago,
igniting a huge blaze that fire-fighters were still trying to put
out. Italy's government and Italian oil group ENI had agreed to help
them, the government said.
A member of the new Libyan parliament Mustafa Abushagor, due to take
office in August, was kidnapped in Tripoli on Tuesday by unknown
assailants, the state news agency LANA reported, citing security
sources.
MILITIAS FIGHT FOR UPPER HAND
Three years after Gaddafi's fall, the OPEC nation has failed to
control ex-rebel militias who refuse to disband and who are
threatening the unity of the country. The extent of recent
hostilities has increased Western worries that Libya is sliding
towards becoming a failed state and may once again go to war.
Despite the violence, Libya's oil production remained at around
500,000 barrels per day, and its oilfields are secure, Samir Salim
Kamal, director of planning at the oil ministry told Reuters on
Tuesday.
That was an increase from earlier this year when unrest pushed
output as low as about 200,000 bpd, but it remains well below the
usual 1.4 million bpd.
While the tribal way of life declined as growing oil wealth
attracted Libyans to towns and cities, traditional power structures
remain strong in the nation of about six million people.
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Gaddafi's strategy effectively amounted to a system of divide and
rule, buying off established tribal leaders.
In Egypt, the army has proved to be the supreme political force but
in the post-Gaddafi era the Libyan militias are fighting for power,
influence and oil wealth. Tripoli was quieter on Tuesday than over
the last fortnight during which the two brigades of former rebels,
mainly from the towns of Zintan and Misrata, have pounded each
other's positions with Grad rockets, artillery fire and cannons,
turning the south of the capital into a battlefield.
Nearly 200 people have died in Tripoli and Benghazi during the
clashes in the two cities, according to the health ministry and
local medical officials.
FUEL TANKS ABLAZE
A spokesman for the National Oil Corporation said on Tuesday the
armed factions in Tripoli had agreed to a brief cease-fire to allow
emergency services to fight the blazing fuel storage tanks
containing millions of litres of fuel.
The tanks are operated by Brega oil company, which is owned by NOC,
and store oil for consumption in Libya.
Black smoke billowed from one of the tanks hit by a rocket on Sunday
near the airport road. The highway and surrounding areas were empty
after homes in the area were evacuated, except for occasional
militia roadblocks.
Fire-fighters were spraying the area with water to cool down storage
depots near the fuel tank that was set ablaze to try to extinguish
the inferno.
The United States, whose embassy is near the contested airport,
evacuated its embassy staff in Tripoli on Saturday, driving
diplomats across the border into Tunisia under heavy military guard
including air support from warplanes.
Britain, other European governments, Turkey and the Philippines have
also pulled out diplomatic staff or left just a few representatives
behind in Tripoli, where the violence is also causing fuel and power
shortages.
France and Spain on Tuesday were evacuating more nationals and some
diplomats from Tripoli, according to LANA. Canada is temporarily
pulling out its diplomats due to fears about their safety, Foreign
Minister John Baird said on Tuesday.
(Additional reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Ahmed Elumami and
Feras Bosalum in Benghazi; writing by Patrick Markey; editing by
Peter Millership and David Stamp)
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