Militia Advances on Libyan Capital, Raising Prospect of Renewed Civil War

A military leader who has vowed for years that he would seize control of Libya ordered his troops on Thursday to march on the capital, Tripoli.

By nightfall, they had come within 25 miles of the city and a powerful rival militia was racing to stop them, raising the possibility of renewed civil war.

The advance, by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, appeared to mark a new and possibly decisive stage in the power struggle that has torn Libya apart since the Arab Spring uprising of 2011.

The move all but obviated plans for peace talks this month among competing Libyan factions. The United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, had arrived in Tripoli for that purpose the previous day. On Thursday he urged “calm and restraint.”