Rival Libyan militias fighting for control of Tripoli's airport agreed to a temporary ceasefire on Wednesday to allow firefighters to try to control a huge blaze at a fuel depot hit by a rocket, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile in Libya's second city, Benghazi, at least 75 bodies, mostly soldiers, were found after two days of fighting in which Islamist fighters and allied militiamen overran an army base, Reuters reported. The Libyan Red Crescent's Mohammed al-Misrati said it had found more than 50 bodies inside the base and were "trying to get them out."
At least 35 of the bodies were later taken to Benghazi's main hospital, according to a Reuters reporter. Sources in the city's hospitals said they had received at least 25 bodies from fighting in other places.
The forces of the self-declared Benghazi Shura Council, which include former rebels and militants from the al Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Sharia, seized the base on Tuesday after fighting involving rockets and warplanes, Reuters reported.
The past two weeks of fighting have been the worst since the civil war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, prompting Western governments to follow the United States and the United Nations in pulling their diplomats out of the North African country, according to Reuters.
France nevertheless closed its embassy on Wednesday, and evacuated 30 French nationals from Tripoli, a few days after the U.S. embassy evacuated its staff across the Tunisian border under heavy military escort, Reuters reported.
Three years after the fall of Gaddafi, Libya's government is unable to impose its authority on numerous brigades of former fighters who remain heavily armed and often make political demands of the state, according to Reuters.
Special forces troops and irregular forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, a renegade former army general who had launched a campaign to clear Benghazi of Islamist militants, withdrew to an air base outside Benghazi, Haftar's spokesman said, Reuters reported.
Benghazi's main police station was also abandoned on Wednesday morning, according to a Reuters reporter at the scene, according to Reuters.
