TRIPOLI, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Libya's eastern-based army, led by General Khalifa Haftar, on Thursday managed to repel an armed attack on the military base Tmanhant in the south of the country, a military official said.
"The army's battalion 116 infantry repelled an armed attack by militants this morning, when they tried to break into the base with a number of armored vehicles from front and back," Captain Adel Khairi, official of the army's southern military zone, told Xinhua.
The militants were stopped and pursued outside the walls of the base towards the southern desert road, said Khairi.
"We believe that the attackers are likely to have links with the remnants of the Benghazi Defense Brigades, who are active in the southern region," Khairi said, confirming that a number of soldiers were killed and wounded in the attack.
The military base Tmanhant is located some 30 km east of Sabha, the largest city in southern Libya.
The Benghazi Defense Brigades is a coalition of extremist militias that fought the army in the eastern city of Benghazi. The group has launched several attacks in the oil crescent region and some eastern cities.
The deadliest attack by the terrorist group targeted a southern air base in May 2017, killing 141 army soldiers.
The army accuses the Benghazi Defense Brigades of recruiting mercenaries from African countries.
The army defeated and expelled the group in June 2017 in its last stronghold city of Jufra, some 650 km southeast of Tripoli, forcing them to flee and hide in desert valleys.
