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Tripoli, 30 March 2013:
Two members of the armed forces were killed and three others wounded, one seriously, early today, Saturday, in . . .[restrict]an attack on the headquarters of southern region military command at Sebha. The attack is believed to be have been carried out by smugglers in revenge for the crackdown by the military on their operations in the area.
The dead have been named as Colonel Musa Rizkallah Awami, a pilot, and Sami Mohamed Abdullah Abuaisha Barasi, a private.
The attack took place at 5 am this morning. Two of the wounded were said to be in a stable condition in the hospital in Sebha, but the third was reported as being in intensive care and in critical condition.
One of the attackers was also injured in the fighting.
The bodies were flown this afternoon to Labraq airport for funerals at Guba and Beida, the home towns of the two dead men, where they were buried with military honours. A delegation consisting of Sebha Local Council members, a number of local elders and members of Sebha civil society institutions accompanied the bodies to Labraq and the funerals.
Smuggling, of drugs and people from Chad and Niger, and weapons the other way, has become a lucrative business in the south. The smugglers are well-armed, powerful and resent the government’s moves to break the trade.
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