"The death toll has risen to 400," a source at a Benghazi hospital told Reuters, an estimate confirmed by officials at other hospitals.
A spokesman for Haftar told Reuters that his forces have surrounded Islamists in Benghazi’s commercial port area, and that “all types of weapons, including aircraft supporting the infantry, are being used to deal with them.”
The Middle East Eye reported on Saturday that general Haftar has said taking Benghazi was “a priority”, and that he had given his forces a deadline of December 15 to capture the city from Islamists. “The Ansar al-Sharia is battle-hardened, that takes more work, even though we control 80 percent of the city and we are pushing forward,” he said on Friday.
He also committed to an assault on Tripoli, which has been occupied since August by the alliance known as Libya Dawn. "I have given myself three months, but maybe we will need less. The Islamists of Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) are not difficult to fight, no more so than the Islamic State at Derna." The MEE reports the general told an Italian newspaper that the Tripoli operation was “only at the beginning,” and that “we need more men and more supplies and weaponry.”
The airport is being used by the Libya Dawn alliance, which has formed a government in Tripoli called the General National Congress, a rival to the internationally recognized Al-Thani administration.
Haftar militias joined forces last month with the Libyan government in Tobruk, which endorsed the general’s military offensives, named Operation Dignity. "Operation Dignity is leading officers and soldiers of the Libyan army… Operation Dignity is an operation of the Libyan army," a Libyan House of Representatives spokesman told Reuters in October.
