By Cihad Nasr
TRIPOLI (AA) – Forces led by military commander Khalifa Haftar announced Thursday that they have fully taken control of Derna city, the final militant stronghold outside of their control in eastern Libya.
In a speech on Libyan television, Haftar thanked the people for their support of a military offensive launched on May 7 by his Libyan National Army to seize the city from a rival militia known as the Derna Protection Force.
Haftar said they had also seized two seaports on June 21 -- Sidra and Ras Lanuf -- in Libya’s strategic “oil crescent” region.
Libya’s strategic oil crescent stretches from the Ras Lanuf region in the east to the north-central city of Sirte and down to the southern Jufra district.
The region, which accounts for an estimated 80 percent of Libya’s total oil production, remains a point of contention between rival political factions.
Libya has been dogged by turmoil since 2011, when a bloody NATO-backed uprising led to the death of president Muammar Gaddafi after more than four decades in power.
Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power -- one in Tobruk and another in Tripoli -- and a host of heavily armed militia groups.