{{A U.N. delegation held talks in Tripoli on Friday to try to broker a ceasefire between armed factions that have turned the Libyan capital and Benghazi into battlegrounds in the worst fighting since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.}}
Most Western governments followed the United States and the United Nations in evacuating diplomats and shutting embassies after three weeks of militia fighting over Tripoli airport that have killed more than 200 people.
The delegation, led by a representative of the United Nations mission in Libya, known as UNSMIL, aims to end the violence, help displaced residents and alleviate shortages of food and basic services, UNSMIL said in a statement.
“UNSMIL is working closely with the international community in a joint effort to achieve a durable and sustainable ceasefire,” it said, giving no further details on who U.N. officials were meeting in Tripoli.
Tripoli was mostly calm on Thursday and Friday, the quietest days since the clashes erupted between Islamist-allied Misrata brigades and fighters from the western town of Zintan who control the international airport.
Benghazi was also quieter a week after an alliance of Islamist fighters and former rebels took a special forces army base and a police headquarters following days of heavy clashes involving air force jets and attack helicopters.
Three years after the fall of Gaddafi, Libya’s fragile government is unable to impose authority on groups of former rebels who refuse to disband and are allied with competing political factions battling for post-war dominance.
Many of the militia brigades are paid by the government as semi-official security forces, each claiming to be legitimate and each holding vast arsenals of tanks, cannons and rockets taken from Gaddafi’s arms dumps after the war.
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