Polling stations in Ghat and its environs closed at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, after voters cast their ballots in the voting centers set up for the local government elections, said the Central Committee for Municipal Council Elections (CCMCE), noting that despite the coronavirus pandemic the voter turnout reached 54%.

Two Italians and a Canadian man, who were abducted in Libya, are allegedly in the hands of a group led by an Algerian man linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb but who is acting on his own account, security sources told Middle East Eye.

Khalifa Haftar, The head of the Libyan National Army has appointed an 11-man committee to negotiate with tribes and elders in the south of the country, Fezzan, to end the instability there. The committee, made up of southerners, is also charged with creating a united army out of the various …

After four months of training, some 450 local police recruits graduated at a ceremony in Ghat on Tuesday. They were the second intake of new police for the area and they included 38 new female police officers.

قال مصدر أمني جزائري إن قوة من الجيش قوامها 10 آلاف عسكري بدأت عملية تمشيط واسعة عبر سلسلة جبلية تقع على الحدود مع ليبيا، بحثاً عن عناصر “إرهابية”، وكذا تأمين موسم السياحة الصحراوية الذي انطلق مطلع الشهر الجاري.

Algeria is keen on reopening all land borders with Libya in the few coming days, Algerian Al-Khabar newspaper has reported, pointing out that the Algerian government has already begun with the technical preparations necessary for the reopening. The borders have been closed for a year and a half now for security reasons.

Members of the municipal council in the south western border town of Ghat have met with Algerian police to discuss cross-border cooperation.

Representatives from the warring Tebu and Tuareg ethnic minorities signed a peace agreement in the southern city of Sebha on Saturday, after a three-week escalation in the fighting saw 60 killed, including women and children.

Ubari and Ghat, Libya – Fierce fighting between indigenous Tuareg and Tebu tribes in the isolated Saharan town of Ubari, near Libya’s lucrative southern oil fields and vast frontier with Algeria, Niger, and Chad, has entered its 10th bloody month.

The Algerian army has raised its state of alert along the border with Libya after ISIS-inspired militants took control of areas in west Libya close to the border with Algeria, an Algerian security source said on Wednesday.