New Libyan parliament meets far from urban battlegrounds

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By Ayman Al-Warfalli TOBRUK Libya (Reuters) - Libya's newly elected House of Representatives held its first session on Saturday, holed up in a heavily guarded provincial hotel as armed factions turned the two biggest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi, into battlefields. Western governments, which have mostly evacuated their diplomats after two weeks of fighting, hope the new parliament can create space for negotiations after the worst clashes since the 2011 war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. Fighting with rockets, anti-aircraft cannon and other heavy artillery in Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi has killed more than 200 people, and edged Libya closer to full-scale civil war just three years after the NATO-backed revolution. Britain became the latest Western government to announce it would close its embassy, fearing being caught in the crossfire.




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