Rival militias whose clashes in western Libya have killed at least 18 people stopped fighting on Thursday, after the government sent in troops to impose a cease-fire, an army official said. Reuters reporters in the town of Zuwara said there was no sign of fighting - in marked contrast to the day before when mortars and rockets were kicking up plumes of smoke, and the town hospital was over-flowing with the wounded.
The flare-up in violence tested the ability of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), in charge since a revolt ousted Muammar Qadhafi last year, to impose its authority on the fractious and volatile country. Amara Ramadan, a Defence Ministry official, said a contingent from the national army had now moved in, four days after the fighting broke out, to keep the warring sides apart.
"We have been here since last night. We are at the frontline to separate the two sides and since last night there has been a cease-fire," he told Reuters in Zuwara. Officials were using the break in hostilities on Thursday to exchange the bodies of people killed in the fighting so they could be buried in their own communities. However, there were still signs of tension. Near the point where, a day earlier, Zuwara fighters clashed with militias from Regdalin, Defence Ministry troops had set up checkpoints and were preventing anyone with weapons passing through.