Mediaboss Marketing

April 29, 2014

Passengers wait for their flights in the departure hall at Tripoli International Airport March 21, 2014. Reuters pic, April 29, 2014.With a bomb on the runway, pets boarding planes and passengers jetting off without visas, Tripoli International Airport typifies the chaos that has gripped Libya since the 2011 ouster of Muammar Gaddafi.

Western powers and Libya's neighbours worry the capital city's airport could be a gateway for illegal immigrants, including militant Islamists, from Africa and conflict zones such as Syria.

Morocco has just introduced visa requirements for Libyans after one group of travellers arrived on forged Libyan passports, and some European and Arab airlines have stopped flying to Tripoli for security reasons.

The European Union is training officials and helping upgrade facilities at the aging airport, a former British military base from World War Two, but a few new luggage scanners won't address the underlying security problem a government that is struggling to impose its authority on a country awash with arms and militias.

Like much of the North African country, the area surrounding the airport is controlled by one of the dozens of brigades of rebels that helped overthrow Gaddafi and have refused to give up their arms.

Political analyst Salah Elbakhoush said the airport was in the middle of a power struggle, with other armed groups, residents and civil aviation staff challenging the control of the militia from Zintan in western Libya.

"People are fed up with them," he said. "The situation west of Tripoli (near the terminal)... is very dangerous. The government is too weak to do anything."

Nightly shootouts have become more frequent in the area, making the airport road one of the most dangerous places in the capital, where security has deteriorated in recent months.

Whoever controls the airport, located about 30 kilometres outside Tripoli, gets access to business at the terminal, which is a main cargo and smuggling hub.

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