The Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) says it has captured five cities and two major oil-producing areas in the east of Libya after opposing forces carried out air raids around major oil ports overnight, seeking to regain control of the area.

At least nine men were killed in the fighting on Friday as the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) and allied forces retreated from the oil ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, two of Libya's largest export terminals, following the attacks by the BDB.

The forces of eastern Libya's military strongman Khalifa Haftar conceded the loss on Saturday.

"The attackers were armed with modern tanks," spokesman for Haftar's forces, Colonel Ahmad al-Mismari, said.

"We lost two men. But the battle is ongoing. The situation in the Oil Crescent remains under control."

The assault raised the prospect of a new escalation of violence around the ports, and put at risk a sharp boost to Libya's oil production achieved after the LNA took over four ports in September, ending a blockade at three of them.

Though Es Sider and Ras Lanuf have been reopened for exports, they were badly damaged in past fighting and are operating well below capacity.

It was not clear to what extent the BDB had gained control over the ports, or whether operations at the terminals had been affected.

"Haftar claims to control most of the eastern part of Libya around Benghazi," Oliver Miles, former British ambassador to Libya, told Al Jazeera.

"But, control is a loose word. He's been fighting for a long time to deal with them and it has taken a long time time to clear them up. He's repeatedly said they've dealt with the problem but they keep reuniting."

In response to the BDB advance, air raids were carried out in Ras Lanuf, Es Sidra, Ben Jawad and Harawa, Mismari added.

READ MORE: Amid Libya's chaos, human traffickers have free rein

A resident in Ras Lanuf said they heard fighter jets over the town at dawn on Saturday, followed by explosions.

Residents posted pictures of fires and damage to buildings apparently caused by the strikes.

Libya's oil production has recently been fluctuating around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd), more than double its output last year but still well under the 1.6 million bpd the OPEC member was producing before a 2011 uprising.

The Benghazi Defence Brigades are composed partly of fighters who were ousted from Benghazi by the LNA.

That battle is linked to a wider conflict between political and armed factions based in eastern and western Libya.</s>Libya's biggest oil port was seized by an armed group, dealing a blow to the North African country as it seeks to revive production of its most important commodity. Brent crude futures climbed.

The Benghazi Defense Brigades, a militia that's not allied to the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli, took control of the Es Sider terminal on Friday afternoon, according to people with knowledge of matter who asked not to be identified because they aren't authorized to speak to the media. The facility had previously been under the control of eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar.

"That is a considerable blow to Haftar," said Mattia Toalda, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. "We have to see if there is an immediate impact on exports. But for confidence in Libya's production it's a blow."

The clashes show just how vulnerable Libya's recent oil-production surge is to conflict that escalated in late 2014 but that had shown signs of calming in the past few months. The nation pumped about 700,000 barrels a day in February, almost doubling from a year ago, according to information compiled by Bloomberg.

Brent crude futures climbed as high as $55.86 a barrel following the port's seizure. They were at $55.61 at 5:11 p.m. in London.

After sweeping through the oil crescent in September and taking control of the ports in the region, Haftar had allowed Libya's National Oil Corp., part of the Tripoli-backed government that he opposes, to use Es Sider for oil exports.

But production remains vulnerable without a lasting peace between the east and west of the country. International efforts to break the political stalemate have so far failed.

Haftar is supported in his standoff with the government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj in the west by Russia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. His allies contend that he alone has the military might and control of oil needed to govern the country. Others inside Libya also support him, though he's opposed by powerful militias mostly across central and western Libya, where 70 percent of the population lives.

"If they can hold on to the positions, they're calling Haftar's military bluff," Toalda said of the Benghazi Defense Brigades. "He had conquered the oil terminals with relatively few military resources. His ground troops are quite thin. He has prevailed until now thanks to a mix of the airpower and political skills."

"If his troops were overrun in two such areas in 24 hours, people inside Libya and outside will start to question his military force," Toalda added.

Earlier, workers at the terminal had fled to nearby Ras Lanuf as Haftar's forces sought to repel the attack, Saad Dinar, head of the oil workers' union in eastern Libya, said by phone.Bushra, the Benghazi Defense Brigades' news website, published photos showing their fighters at the airport in Ras Lanuf, another key city for Libyan oil exports.

The Benghazi Defense Brigades' stronghold is in Jufra, on the western edge of the nation's oil crescent, rather than the city of Benghazi, which is in the east. The group was formed in 2016 with a goal of wresting Benghazi back from Haftar.

There have been skirmishes in the area between the two sides before. Friday's fighting marks an escalation and highlights threats to the North African country's efforts to restore its crude production following two years of conflict.

Libyan oil production has been rising, with shipments from key ports resuming after many months of conflict. The more it pumps, the greater the pressure on other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to curb supply in order to eliminate a global oil glut.

"It's still very early to judge the situation, and it depends on the ability of each side to sustain their control over the area," said Zeid Ragas, a Libyan political commentator.</s>* Benghazi wants more control as most of Libya's oil in east

* Attacks prompt UK, US to warn against travel to Benghazi

BENGHAZI, Libya, May 28 Libya plans to move the headquarters of its state oil firm to Benghazi, the city that started the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi and now wants greater influence, if a plan to restructure the corporation is approved by the national assembly.

Despite about 80 percent of Libya's oil being located in the east, Gaddafi moved the state oil firm to the capital Tripoli and starved the eastern region of investment.

"The headquarters will be in Benghazi," said deputy oil minister Omar Shakmak, referring to the terms of a new plan being finalised for approval by Libya's highest political body.

Easterners have been calling for greater control over the country's oil reserves - estimated to be the largest in Africa - since the uprising began in their region in early 2011.

At the start of the year, eastern workers and activists rejected a compromise by the government to move refining and petrochemicals to the east and even considered staging protests to threaten oil output.

Several assembly members told Reuters that easterners had since been promised the National Oil Corporation (NOC) headquarters would also move to Benghazi, but it was difficult to say when this would happen as they had not seen official paperwork yet.

"The prime minister then went to Benghazi and promised to move the NOC back to the city but no official resolution on this has been seen by the General National Congress (GNC) committee yet," said a member of the assembly's energy committee.

The wrangling over how to split the state oil firm has added to broader discontent in Benghazi over the prospect of further marginalisation of the east by Tripoli and fuelled calls for greater autonomy.

The NOC's predecessor, the Libyan General Petroleum Company, was set up in Benghazi in 1968. The NOC was established in 1970, a year after Gaddafi came to power, and relocated to Tripoli.

NOC Chairman Nuri Berruien said Prime Minister Ali Zeidan had promised to relocate the headquarters to Benghazi, but said it was a government issue.

"Moving an NOC or establishing an NOC has to be done by the government," Berruien said in Istanbul. "There have been promises, (but) I don't know if there's been any action."

Oil is Libya's lifeblood, which pumps at a rate of around 1.6 million barrels per day and has made the country rich despite its troubles.

While Benghazi led the uprising against Gaddafi, the city is far from being welcoming to foreigners these days.

In September, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed in an assault on their diplomatic mission, while an Italian consul was shot at in his armoured car in January, escaping unscathed. The United Nations and Red Cross missions have also been targeted by violence.

Various governments, including Britain and the United States, advise against travel to Benghazi, although British oil firm BP and some embassies have also pulled staff out of Tripoli, where government control has started to slip.

Shakmak said Zeidan had already signalled his support for the plan to move the headquarters.

"I have discussed this with Zeidan and he confirmed it was clear to him that this is his intention, and (the move) is only a matter of time," Shakmak told Reuters.

Zeidan's office said it could not comment and advised speaking with the oil ministry, which is in charge of the industry's regulatory framework.

Anthony Skinner, Middle East and North Africa director at risk consultancy Maplecroft, said the move would send a strong signal and help soothe eastern fears of marginalisation.

"The risk is that it will have adverse effects on investor appetite if regional groups and/or tribes are seen to be able to turn the screw on the government."

The current plan would also split upstream activities, such as exploration and production, from downstream activities, such as refining and marketing, according to Shakmak, with the former to remain in Tripoli under the terms of the plan.

This was holding the submission process up, the deputy minister said, as some easterners wanted the exploration and production business to move to Benghazi as well.

The NOC's largest oil-producing subsidiary, Agoco, has been leading calls for more control over its activities since it became the de-facto state oil firm during the uprising. (Additional reporting by Feras Bosalum in Benghazi; Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul and Marie-Louise Gumuchian in Tripoli; Editing by Giles Elgood)</s>BENGHAZI, Libya: Militias on Friday attacked Libya's main oil-production area in the east, prompting the forces of strongman Khalifa Haftar who control it to retaliate with air strikes, military sources said.

The attack was spearheaded by the Benghazi Defence Brigades, a coalition of mostly Islamist militias and armed groups, and was backed by tribal fighters and former petroleum installation guards.

They "advanced towards the oil crescent and are 15 kilometres (nine miles) south of the town of Nofliya," said Colonel Moftah al-Megarief, who heads an oil facilities guard controlled by Haftar.

Nofliya is on the edge of the North African country's strategic oil crescent, home to the main export terminals of Al-Sidra, Brega, Ras Lanuf and Zuwaytina which Haftar's forces seized in September last year.

"We are trying to repel them and the air force has carried out several sorties," Megarief said, declining to elaborate.

However, an officer on Haftar's staff told AFP that MiG-23 warplanes and Mi-35 attack helicopters bombarded a convoy of Benghazi Defence Brigades vehicles south of Nofliya.

"Several vehicles were destroyed," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Libya's oil-exporting region is bitterly contested between the country's internationally recognised and Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and a rival administration in the east backed by Haftar.

In December, the Benghazi Defence Brigades carried out a similar attack on the oil crescent, but were repelled by Haftar's forces.

And in January, powerful militias from the western city of Misrata had joined another such attack on the oil crescent.

Megarief said Friday's assault was launched from Al-Jufra air base in southern Libya.

Rocked by chaos since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya desperately needs to relaunch its oil exports, the backbone of its economy.

The GNA has struggled to impose its authority as it faces a multitude of battle-hardened fighters who took part in the uprising that ousted Gaddafi.

On Friday it released a statement saying it was not involved in the "military escalation" and had "not instructed any group" to try to retake the oil crescent.

However, the embattled government denounced the violence and warned of unspecified action "if clashes continue there or anywhere else" in Libya.</s>BENGHAZI, Libya: The forces of eastern Libya’s military strongman Khalifa Haftar have lost control of a key oil export terminal they had seized last year, a spokesman conceded on Saturday.



Colonel Ahmad al-Mismari said that the rival forces had overrun the main airfield in the oil port of Ras Lanuf and identified them as militias of the Benghazi Defence Brigades.

An array of forces, most of them loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli, have been involved in efforts to oust Haftar from the oil ports, whose seizure enabled him to pose a major challenge to its authority.

But the Tripoli government on Friday evening denied any involvement in the renewed offensive on the oil ports, condemning it as a “military escalation”.

The forces involved in the latest assault are a mixture of militias, eastern tribes opposed to Haftar and members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard which controlled the ports before Haftar’s takeover.</s>It was the latest of many attacks on local security forces. Two months before, the man whose job it was to ensure Benghazi was safe, the police chief, was shot dead outside his home.

Two years after Libya's second city kindled the uprising that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, it epitomises a popular revolution gone awry - rival militias and Islamist gunmen more powerful than the police, moving residents to ask: where is the state?

"Imagine a city taken over by militias when all you want is to support the state," activist Mohammed Buganah said. "People feel insecure. They are very upset and annoyed about this."

There have been assaults on diplomats and international missions, including the September 11 killing of the U.S. ambassador, amid a rising tide of kidnappings, bombings and assassinations, mainly of security officials.

The anarchy, along with garbage-strewn streets and unravelling municipal services, have deepened a sense of neglect by the capital Tripoli far to the west and reawakened demands for autonomy in a region with most of Libya's oil wealth.

"Everyone is increasingly worried about eastern Libya," a diplomatic source said. "Things are seriously deteriorating."

Reinstating basic security across Libya is a priority, especially in Benghazi, cradle of the February 17 revolt against Gaddafi but now seen as a foothold and springboard for Islamist militancy once suppressed by the dictator.

Interior Minister Ashour Shuail singled out his home town as part of a mammoth project in building an effective police. "The security is getting better and the attacks are dwindling," he said in early January. "It is not as bad as it was."

But a few weeks later, a curfew is now being considered in the Mediterranean coastal city of nearly 1 million people.

Another activist, who declined to be named for his own safety, said: "There isn't anyone fully in control of Benghazi."

Former anti-Gaddafi rebels claim to have been absorbed, at least symbolically, into the interior ministry, like the Supreme Security Committee, and military.

But fighters for such factions as the Libya Shield, February 17 and Raffalah al-Sahati boast more firepower than the police or army and are estimated to number in the thousands.

"Brigades control entrances into the city, streets, key infrastructure. The police don't want to challenge them because they just don't have the manpower," said the activist.

Ansar al-Sharia, a radical Islamist group whose members witnesses say were at the scene of the September attack on the U.S. mission, was driven out of its base by protesters after a "Rescue Benghazi" rally by outraged citizenry.

Locals say the group, which once guarded a hospital and denied involvement in the assault, has since kept a low profile.

But analysts and activists say Islamist militants are amassing power on the ground even if their numbers are unknown. The police, seen guiding traffic or carrying out patrols, admit they are often powerless, and targets of attacks.

"We only have pistols and rifles. They have tanks and heavy weapons," the chief of a downtown police station said. "We want to do our job but some police officers are simply afraid."

Even if security forces make arrests, ensuing attacks discourage prosecutions. A police investigator is still missing after being abducted in early January.

"Everyday I check under my car and in my rear view mirror before I set off," an officer who gave his name as Anis said. "I am proud to be a policeman but you have to be careful now."

The violence is mainly against security forces and may be revenge attacks by former prisoners or militants seeking to stamp their authority. But without an effective army or police, authorities have little power to confront criminal suspects.

"Benghazans need the police (to) lift our morale," one officer, also declining to be named, said. "But anyone who leaves his home for work every day is like a martyr."

This is hardly the image Benghazans want for their city. But they concede that life has been disrupted by violence and unrest on top of demands for greater autonomy or investment in a region separated from Tripoli 1,000 km (620 miles) away to the west.

Benghazi's security problems form the backdrop to more pressing civic grievances - a government failure to satisfy a public whose frustration has been simmering since rebel leaders left their eastern base for Tripoli in October 2011.

Long a pro-autonomy hotbed behind earlier attempts to unseat Gaddafi, Benghazi is now the focal point of a widespread sense that the new Tripoli authorities are still ignoring the east.

Benghazans point to rubbish-strewn streets, dirt track roads, hospitals and schools in need of basic upgrades. New shops have opened and building projects have resumed.

But they expect more.

"Where is all the money from the oil? Why are they not spending it to help us?" one female teacher said. "These politicians sit in their hotels in Tripoli and forget about us."

The bigger issue is what status Benghazi will have in the new Libya and stake in national oil supplies of 1.6 million barrels a day - much of it from the east. Discontent has led to calls for return to a federal political structure.

For about a decade after Libya became an independent state in 1951, the North African state was run along federal lines, devolving power to the eastern, western and southern regions.

Benghazi was Libya's commercial capital and the east had the cachet of being the family homeland of King Idris. Libya began to centralise its government in the last years of the monarchy. Gaddafi sped up the process after his 1969 coup, concentrating the power of the state in Tripoli and neglecting Benghazi.

"This is not new for us. Let people handle their problems," said Abubakr Buera of federalist National Union party. "We are campaigning for political decentralisation and good governance."

Few Westerners live in Benghazi, which has borne the brunt of a wave of violence against diplomats and international bodies, including the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and a gun attack on the Italian consul's car this month.

Britain's recent call to its nationals to leave immediately due to a "specific and imminent" threat to Westerners highlights the insecurity plaguing Benghazi.

The assault on the U.S. mission, for which no arrests were made, grabbed world attention. But there had already been attacks on British, Red Cross and U.N. properties here.

An Algerian hostage crisis in January, in which Islamist militants apparently entered from Libya and seized a natural gas plant before Algerian troops stormed it, leaving nearly 70 captives and gunmen dead, has raised regional security concerns.

Randy Robinson, principal of British School Benghazi, said: "One of our staff was carjacked. Our residence last spring was robbed with teachers in a room held at gunpoint as thieves cleaned out the apartments. We have to take care."

Two years ago the anti-Gaddafi uprising had the strongest support in Benghazi but today a very different mood has emerged.

"Most people here would say they are very unhappy," a local oil worker said. "Some say they are worse off than before."

Benghazans want their city to be the economic capital again and bodies like the National Oil Corporation, founded in Benghazi and later moved to Tripoli by Gaddafi, to return here. They have given the government until February 15 to make a decision.

"(Politicians) said they would do many things but there is no change," said Yussef al-Ghariani of the oil and gas workers' union. "People say they will do another revolution."</s>BENGHAZI, Libya: East Libyan forces carried out air strikes around major oil ports overnight as they sought to regain control of the area from a rival faction, a military spokesman said on Saturday.

The eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) and allied forces retreated on Friday from the oil ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, two of Libya's largest export terminals, as a faction known as the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) attacked.

The assault raised the prospect of a new escalation of violence around the ports, and put at risk a sharp boost to Libya's oil production achieved after the LNA took over four ports in September, ending a blockade at three of them.

Though Es Sider and Ras Lanuf have been reopened for exports, they were badly damaged in past fighting and are operating well below capacity. It was not clear to what extent the BDB had gained control over the ports, or whether operations at the terminals had been affected.

In response to the BDB advance, air strikes were carried out in Ras Lanuf, Es Sidra, Ben Jawad and Harawa, LNA spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari told Reuters.

A resident in Ras Lanuf said they heard war planes over the town at dawn on Saturday, followed by explosions. Residents posted pictures of fires and damage to buildings apparently caused by the strikes.

Libya's oil production has recently been fluctuating around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd), more than double its output last year but still well under the 1.6 million bpd the OPEC member was producing before a 2011 uprising.

The Benghazi Defence Brigades are composed partly of fighters who were ousted from Benghazi by the LNA, where LNA commander Khalifa Haftar has been waging a military campaign for nearly three years against Islamists and other opponents.

That battle is linked to a wider conflict between political and armed factions based in eastern and western Libya.</s>The forces of eastern Libya's military strongman Khalifa Haftar have lost control of a key oil export terminal they had seized last year, a spokesman conceded on Saturday.

Colonel Ahmad al-Mismari said that the rival forces had overrun the main airfield in the oil port of Ras Lanuf and identified them as Islamists of the Benghazi Defence Brigades.

An array of forces, most of them loyal to the UN-backed government in Tripoli, have been involved in efforts to oust Haftar from the oil ports, whose seizure enabled him to pose a major challenge to its authority.

But the Tripoli government on Friday evening denied any involvement in the renewed offensive on the oil ports, condemning it as a "military escalation".

The forces involved in the latest assault are a mixture of Islamist militias, eastern tribes opposed to Haftar and members of the Petroleum Facilities Guard which controlled the ports before Haftar's takeover.

"The attackers were armed with modern tanks and a radar to neutralise our air force," Mismari said.

"But the battle is ongoing. The situation in the Oil Crescent remains under control."

There are four ports along the Oil Crescent on the eastern part of the Gulf of Sirte which account for the lion's share of Libya's oil exports.

Haftar's forces seized Zueitina, Brega, Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra in a lightning offensive last September that dealt a major blow to the UN-backed Government of National Accord.

Haftar dominates a rival administration based in the east that continues to defy the GNA's authority.

He has backing from neighbouring Egypt, from the United Arab Emirates and increasingly from Russia.

Russia has been trying to broker talks in Egypt between Haftar and the GNA that would see it reformed with a major role for the strongman but so far they have not borne fruit.

Exports from the eastern oil terminals are Libya's main source of hard currency and so control over them has been bitterly contested.

In December, the Benghazi Defence Brigades carried out a similar attack on the Oil Crescent, but were repelled by Haftar's forces.

And in January, powerful militias from the western city of Misrata joined another such attack.

Rocked by chaos since the overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011, Libya desperately needs to relaunch its oil exports, the backbone of its economy.

The GNA has struggled to impose its authority as it faces a multitude of battle-hardened fighters who took part in the uprising that ousted Kadhafi.</s>Workers were evacuated from Libya's biggest oil port of Es Sider as fighting escalated nearby, highlighting threats to the North African country's efforts to restore its crude production following two years of conflict. The evacuation to Ras Lanuf, to the east, was a precautionary measure, Saad Dinar, head of the oil workers' union in eastern Libya, said by phone. The decision was taken as forces loyal to eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar, which control the area, sought to repel an attack on the port by Benghazi Defense Brigades forces from the west, he said.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Bloomberg.</s>BENGHAZI, Libya, March 3 (Reuters) - East Libyan forces carried out air strikes and clashed with rival factions on Friday close to major oil terminals, eastern military officials said.

The strikes were carried out south of the coastal town of Nawfiliya in response to an attack by the Benghazi Defense Brigades (BDB), according to spokesmen for the eastern air force and for the local Petroleum Facilities Guard.

A military source said clashes were continuing on the ground between the two sides. Nawfiliya is about 50 km (30 miles) west of the oil port Es Sider and 75 km (50 miles) west of another terminal, Ras Lanuf.

Es Sider and Ras Lanuf are among four ports that the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) took control of in September.

It allowed the National Oil Corporation (NOC) to reopen three of the ports which had long been blockaded, leading to a major boost to Libya's oil production.

The LNA's opponents have made several attempts since then to recapture the ports, but have been repelled by air strikes. The Benghazi Defense Brigades are composed partly of fighters who were ousted from Benghazi by the LNA, where LNA commander Khalifa Haftar has been waging a military campaign for nearly three years against Islamists and other opponents.

Libya has recently been producing about 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, more than double its output early last year but still far less than the 1.6 million bpd the OPEC member was pumping before the 2011 uprising.

But production remains vulnerable to political turmoil and continued insecurity, with factions based in the east and west of Libya repeatedly clashing in recent weeks in desert areas southwest of the Oil Crescent whose ports suffered major damage in previous rounds of fighting and are still operating well below capacity.

The NOC has been lobbying foreign firms to return to Libya and invest in the oil and gas sector as it tries to push production to 1.2 million bpd later this year. (Reporting by Ayman al-Warfalli; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
The Benghazi Defense Brigades, an ally of the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries, claims to have captured five cities and two oil-production areas from forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar in the east of Libya.