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Libya on alert after murder of four tribal peacekeepers

Four men belonging to a local Libyan tribe and working on mediations between warring tribes were murdered recently, raising questions about reconciliation efforts.
Demonstrators gather to protest against the Libyan Parliament's decision to call on the United Nations and the Security Council to immediately intervene to protect civilians and state institutions in Libya, at Freedom Square in Benghazi August 15, 2014. The new U.N. special envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, plans to visit Tripoli as early as next week to seek a ceasefire between armed factions whose clashes have turned parts of the capital into a battlefield, his office said.  REUTERS/Esam Omran Al-Fetori (L
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TRIPOLI, Libya — Libya woke up to the news Sept. 29 of a heinous crime in which four men from the country’s largest tribe had been murdered as they were driving back home from the town of Mizda, south of Tripoli, to Bani Walid in the west of the country. Two of the victims were prominent members of the Social Council of Warfalla Tribes (SCWT): Abdulla Antat, the head of the reconciliation committee that has been leading social reconciliation sessions among different tribes in the war-ravaged country, and Khamis Sabaka, a member of the same committee. The two other victims are Adil Milad, a policeman, and Musa Mansali, a driver.

The four men had just finished their latest successful mission of peacemaking that saw them kick-start another round of reconciliation between the Mashashia and Zintan tribes in Libya’s western mountain region. The two tribes have been at odds, resulting in deaths and displacements of large numbers of Mashashia tribe members at the hands of their neighbors, the Zintan, in the aftermath of the civil war of 2011, with the Zintan revolting against the regime of former President Moammar Gadhafi and the Mashashia supporting the regime.

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