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| See also: | Other events of 2016 List of years in Libya | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Libya.
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| See also: | Other events of 2016 List of years in Libya | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Libya.
Libyan Airlines, formerly known as Libyan Arab Airlines over several decades, is the flag carrier of Libya. Based in Tripoli, it operates scheduled passenger and cargo services within Libya and to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the majority of which leave from Tripoli International Airport. Benina International Airport in Benghazi serves as a secondary base. Libyan Airlines also operates Hajj services. The company is wholly owned by the government of Libya.
Afriqiyah Airways is a Libyan state-owned airline based in Tripoli, Libya. It was established in 2001 and operates both domestic and international flights. The airline's main hub is Tripoli International Airport (TIP), and it serves a wide range of destinations across Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.
Malta International Airport is the only airport in Malta, and it serves the whole of the Maltese Islands. It is located on the island of Malta, southwest of the Maltese capital, Valletta, in the town of Luqa, and occupies the location of the former RAF Luqa. The airport serves as the main hub for KM Malta Airlines and Medavia besides being an operating base for Ryanair and its subsidiary Malta Air. It is also home to the Area Control Center and hosts the annual Malta Airshow. The airport is operated by Malta International Airport plc.
Mitiga International Airport is an airport that serves Tripoli, Libya, located about 8 kilometres east of Tripoli's city centre. Since 2018 it has been the sole international airport serving Tripoli following the closure of Tripoli International Airport after it was severely damaged in the second Libyan civil war.
Pan Am Flight 103 (PA103/PAA103) was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by Clipper Maid of the Seas, a Boeing 747 registered N739PA. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988, while the aircraft was in flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, it was destroyed by a bomb, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie, killing 11 residents. With a total of 270 fatalities, it is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom.
Benina International Airport serves Benghazi, Libya. It is located in the borough of Benina, 19 kilometres (12 mi) east of Benghazi, from which it takes its name. The airport is operated by the Civil Aviation and Meteorology Bureau of Libya and is the second largest in the country after Tripoli International Airport. Benina International is also the secondary hub of both Buraq Air and flag carrier, Libyan Airlines. As of 17 July 2014 all flights to the airport were suspended due to fighting in the area.
An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 2011.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 2014.
Many states began to intervene against the Islamic State, in both the Syrian Civil War and the War in Iraq (2013–2017), in response to its rapid territorial gains from its 2014 Northern Iraq offensives, universally condemned executions, human rights abuses and the fear of further spillovers of the Syrian Civil War. These efforts are called the war against the Islamic State, or the war against ISIS. In later years, there were also minor interventions by some states against IS-affiliated groups in Nigeria and Libya. All these efforts significantly degraded the Islamic State's capabilities by around 2019–2020. While moderate fighting continues in Syria, as of 2024, ISIS has been contained to a manageably small area and force capability.
In October 2014, the self-declared Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took control of numerous government buildings, security vehicles and local landmarks in the Eastern Libyan coastal city of Derna. Although some media outlets reported the control as being absolute, rival groups like the al-Qaeda-affiliated Abu Salim Martyrs Brigade continued to control parts of the city. Clashes erupted between ISIL and an alliance of Islamist groups in June 2015, with ISIL retreating from Derna to outlying suburbs the following month. However, clashes continued between the Islamist alliance and the Tobruk-based government forces.
The Islamic State – Libya Province is a militant Islamist group active in Libya under three branches: Fezzan Province in the desert south, Cyrenaica Province in the east, and Tripolitania Province in the west. The branches were formed on 13 November 2014, following pledges of allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by militants in Libya.
In July 2013, at the same time as mass protests began against the 3 July coup d'état which deposed Mohamed Morsi, and in parallel with the escalation of the already ongoing jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula, pro-Muslim Brotherhood militants started violent attacks against policemen and soldiers in central and western Egypt. In the following months, new Islamist armed groups were created to reinstate Islamist rule in Egypt, like Soldiers of Egypt and the Popular Resistance Movement. Since 2013, violence in mainland Egypt has escalated and developed into a low-level Islamist insurgency against the Egyptian government.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 2016.
The Zliten truck bombing occurred on 7 January 2016, when Islamist militants detonated a truck bomb at the police training camp al-Jahfal in the coastal town of Zliten, Libya. Libyan authorities said at least 60 policemen were killed and over 200 were wounded. Concrete buildings inside the compound were charred from the blast and their windows blown out; nearby cars were turned into black and twisted metal wrecks. The head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, Martin Kobler, said the blast was a suicide attack.
Afriqiyah Airways Flight 209 was a domestic passenger flight from Sabha to Tripoli, Libya that was hijacked on 23 December 2016 and made a forced landing in Luqa, Malta. The flight was operated by Afriqiyah Airways, Libya's state airline, and carried 111 passengers: 82 males, 28 females and one infant. The two hijackers later released all of the hostages and surrendered to the authorities.
From November 2015 to 2019, the United States and allies carried out a large series of both airstrikes and drone strikes to intervene in Libya in its revived conflict in support of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord against the ISIL presence in the region. By 2019, the ISIL branch had been largely driven from holding Libyan territory, and US strikes ceased.
