TRIPOLI/TUNIS, (Reuters) – Libya’s two-month civil war spilled over the border into Tunisia, provoking outrage in the western neighbour, while rebels in Misrata said only NATO could halt the bombardment of the besieged city.
The struggle between forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and rebels trying to end his more than four decades of rule drew in outsiders last month, as NATO began air strikes on government troops under a United Nations mandate.
But yesterday the fighting spilled over Libya’s land frontier, when Gaddafi troops battled rebels on Tunisian territory for control of the Dehiba-Wazin frontier crossing. The incursion was brief and limited, and Gaddafi’s troops even apologised locally. But the response was nevertheless furious from Tunisia, where the Arab world’s wave of uprisings began late last year, leading to the overthrow of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January.
“Given the gravity of what has happened … the Tunisian authorities have informed the Libyans of their extreme indignation and demand measures to put an immediate stop to these violations,” a Tunisian Foreign Ministry statement said.
Illustrating the difficulty of keeping the Libyan conflict sealed within the country’s land borders, artillery shells fired by Gaddafi forces also struck the Tunisian side of the crossing.
Rebels seized the post a week ago, as it controls the only road link which their comrades in Libya’s Western Mountains have with the outside world, making them rely otherwise on rough tracks for supplies of food, fuel and medicine.
After weeks of advances and retreats by rebel and government forces along the Mediterranean coast, fighting has settled into a pattern of clashes and skirmishes.
Yesteray’s battle for the crossing between Dehiba in Tunisia and Wazin on the Libyan side was typical of the fluid and confused conflict, which broke out in mid-February.
First government troops stormed the post in what appeared to be part of a broader offensive to root out rebel outposts beyond their eastern heartland around Benghazi, Libya’s second city.
Gaddafi’s soldiers apologised to their Tunisian counterparts for the incursion and hoisted their flag at the border, tearing down a pre-Gaddafi era flag that had fluttered for a few days.
