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By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 17 June 2013:
Reports that troops had been airlifted to Kufra to deal with a problems there have been . . .[restrict]denied by the spokesperson of Kufra military zone, Mukhtar Ibrahim. He told the Libya Herald the troops stationed in the town were Special Forces from Benghazi and that they were doing a good job securing it.
Rather than sending in troops, forces are being withdrawn from Kufra, according to a member of the General Staff’s media office, Hassan Al-Fandi.
The Libya Shield Battalion No 7 had pulled out, he told the Libya Herald, following Congress passing Resolution No. 53 on 9 June accepting Major General Yousef Mangoush’s resignation as Chief of Staff and ordering the government to close all brigades not part of the Armed Forces by the end of the year.
It was sent to Kufra last July when Libya Shield No. 1, accused of exacerbating communal conflict in the town, was withdrawn.
Shield No. 7 is not the only unit to pull out, said Fandi. Two days ago, another 150-member battalion in the town led by Ziyad Belaam and described by the media officer as Islamist, had handed in its weapons and vehicles to Kufra Military Council. [/restrict]
