FORCES allied with Libya’s U.N.-supported government said yesterday they have wrested control of a key military base on the outskirts of the country’s capital from their rivals trying to capture Tripoli.

The development is a heavy setback for the eastern-based forces under commander Khalifa Hifter, who has been waging a campaign for over a year to take Tripoli from an array of militias in the west, loosely linked to the administration in the capital.

Col. Mohamed Gnounou, a spokesman for the Tripoli-allied forces, said they retook the al-Waitya airbase in the city’s southwestern desert reaches. He did not provide details. A spokesman for Hifter’s forces was not immediately available for comment.

Tripoli-based Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj vowed “liberate all cities and regions.”

“Today’s victory is not the end of the battle,” he said in a statement.

The Tripoli-allied forces have been trying for weeks to take the base, stepping up attacks by Turkish-supplied drones. Meanwhile, Hifter’s forces have sustained heavy losses recently — in April, the Tripoli-allied forces seized control of the city of Sabrata and the town of Sorman, west of the Libyan capital.

(SD-Agencies)