Troops loyal to retired general Khalifa Haftar sit on an amoured personnel carrier during a demonstration in Benghazi yesterday calling on the international community to arm the Libyan army.

Agencies
Tripoli
A battle between Islamic State group militants and local gunmen in Sirte has left between 150 and 200 dead, a Libyan diplomat said yesterday, warning of a massacre in the coastal city.
“A real massacre is taking place, and we call on the international community to intervene,” Libyan ambassador to France, Chibani Abuhamoud, said.
A Sirte council official said earlier that the fighting erupted on Tuesday as authorities in the militia-held capital Tripoli, opposed to Libya’s internationally recognised government, announced the launch of an operation to retake the city from IS.
“A real war has been going on in Sirte since Tuesday,” the council official said.
“IS militants and armed residents from the city have been fighting continuously,” he said, adding that Sirte was also being hit by air strikes.
The defence ministry in Tripoli, which was seized last year by a militia alliance known as Fajr Libya, announced on Tuesday the launch of “an operation to liberate Sirte”.
It said the offensive was being spearheaded by “youths and residents from Sirte and our air force and revolutionary” fighters.
The ambassador, who answers to the recognised government, said the clashes erupted after the IS assassinated an imam from the influential Al-Farjan tribe at the start of the week.
The militants have since been “massacring people, even killing people in their homes,” Abuhamoud charged.
“Families are leaving Sirte,” said a resident, asking, like others, not to be named. He said IS fighters were searching for people with weapons.
A similar battle occurred in the eastern city of Derna in June when IS was expelled by rival Islamist fighters who teamed up with locals angered by the arrival of foreign militants and clerics.
IS launched an offensive to retake Derna this week.
Libya has descended into chaos since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. It has two parliaments and two governments vying for power, one based in Tripoli and one in Tobruk in the east.
Only the Tobruk-based government is recognised by the international community.
The United Nations brought the main warring factions together in Geneva this week but the diplomacy has been overtaken by fighting between groups not present at the negotiating table.  
IS, which already controls large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, has exploited the chaos in Libya, notably taking control in June of Sirte, 450km east of Tripoli.
The militants control an eastern district in Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, known as Neighbourhood Three.
The Tobruk government has condemned the violence in Sirte and urged the international community to “assume its moral responsibilities” against IS.
It said on Tuesday that world powers were using “double standards” by fighting IS in Syria and Iraq and “turning a blind eye” to the growing presence of the militants in Libya.