Tripoli declares state of emergency in Libya's south Libya's oil-rich south has sunk deeper into chaos amid an eruption of tribal and ethnic fighting that prompted the central government in Tripoli to declare a state of emergency at the weekend and dispatch fighter jets to the region. Ali Zeidan, Libya's prime minister, and delegations of lawmakers and ministers, said they would travel to the southern commercial and administrative hub of Sebha to examine the security situation and meet local leaders after ethnic Tebu fighters allegedly seized control of the Tamanhint air base east of the city at the weekend amid fighting with rival Arab tribesmen. Mr Zeidan vowed that the "hostile force" that had seized the camp would be expelled and said he had asked fighters from the coastal city of Misurata to head to the south to quell the unrest. "This confrontation is continuing but in a few hours it will be solved," the prime minister said in a television appearance. Other officials said air power was being used to remove the fighters. "A force was readied, then aircraft moved and took off," Abdul-Raziq al-Shabahi, defence ministry spokesman, told reporters in Tripoli, according to news agencies. He was confident the "targets" would be removed from the facility in the coming hours. Years of tension between Arab, Tebu and Tuareg groups in the south have periodically developed into violence, exacerbated by the spread of weapons across Libya following the 2011 collapse of Muammer Gaddafi's regime. Much of Libya's oil reserves are concentrated in the south and the outbreak of violence threatens to further disrupt oil and gas production already hampered by politically motivated ongoing blockades of key facilities. The UN's Libya mission at the weekend voiced "deep concern" over the ongoing violence in the south of the country. "The mission calls for the immediate end to the armed clashes and supports efforts to restore calm, stop the bloodshed and ensure security in the city and other areas of southern Libya," it said in a statement. The latest clashes began last weekend after members of the Tebu, who claim decades of discrimination and abuse at the hands of Arabs, allegedly killed a local Arab tribal chief linked to a 2012 massacre of Tebu and Tuaregs in Sebha. So far, dozens have died in the fighting, including two killed this weekend in Sebha and three near the southeastern city of Jalu, near the country's critical southeastern Kufrah oilfields. Libya's official WAL news agency said the road between Jalu and Kufrah to the south had been completely closed off because of clashes between Arab and Tebu tribes.