Drone attack ignites massive blaze at Libya's Zawiya refinery
A drone strike sparked a massive fire at Libya's Zawiya refinery, while a car bomb killed a senior military intelligence officer in Benghazi.
Firefighters in western Libya worked through Tuesday to contain the remnants of a massive blaze at the Zawiya oil refinery, triggered by a drone strike a day earlier. The attack, which hit a gasoline storage tank holding 4.5 million liters of fuel, caused the tank to collapse and prompted the state-run National Oil Corporation to declare a state of maximum emergency at the facility.
The fire burned through the night into Tuesday morning, sending towering flames and thick black smoke into the sky. Local media footage showed emergency crews spraying foam and water in an attempt to subdue the intense fire. No casualties have been reported, according to health authorities.
A second drone strike was reported near another key oil tank at the same facility, but it caused no damage or injuries. The attacks are part of a recent series of drone strikes targeting oil infrastructure in Zawiya, a Mediterranean town about 47 kilometers west of Tripoli that houses the country's largest refinery, an export terminal, and a power plant. Over the weekend, separate drone strikes damaged a fuel tank and a desalination plant linked to the oil facilities.
In a separate incident, a senior military officer aligned with commander Khalifa Hifter was killed in a car bomb in the eastern city of Benghazi on Monday evening. Major General Fawzy al-Mansouri, who served as director of military intelligence for Hifter's Libyan National Army, died when an explosive-laden vehicle detonated near his car in the Sayyida Aisha neighborhood.
No group has claimed responsibility for either the refinery attacks or the assassination. The incidents underscore the fragile security situation in Libya, which has been mired in chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi. The country remains divided between rival administrations in the east and west, each backed by armed groups and foreign governments. The strikes come as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is scheduled to visit both Tripoli and Benghazi.