On 9 and 10 September, in response to the killing of a Tebu teenager and subsequent attack on an Libyan National Army (LNA) barracks in Qatroun last week, Deputy Chief of Staff Saddam Haftar ordered his units to conduct house raids and arrests of citizens. 23 Tebu were reported to have been arrested in Qatroun. These included suspected participants in the brief attack on the barracks, as well as social figures and security actors such as General Mahmoud Ibrahim, head of Qatroun branch of Libyan Intelligence Services (LIS).
On 9 September, the Southern Liberation Operations Room (SLOR) issued a video statement in which it deplored the killing and arrest of innocents in Fezzan. It also called on all citizens in Fezzan to take up arms and defend their dignity from ‘Haftar’s gangs’.
On 12 September, the so-called ‘Fezzan Revolutionary Force’ (FRF) announced the immediate closure of Libya’s southern borders to all truck movement and commercial transport until further notice. It shared an image showing the entire strip of the southern border from Algeria to Sudan as being a closed military zone, including the Salvador border crossing, al-Toum crossing into Niger, Gate 17 to Chad and the al-Uwaynat area. It said ‘All merchants, truck owners, and drivers must adhere to this announcement and refrain from moving within the zone until a new official notice is issued.’
The FRF said this is in response to the siege of the Qatroun municipality by forces aligned to the LNA under the command of Saddam Haftar. It claimed that the LNA is starving the residents by trucks carrying cooking gas and fuel from entering the city. It added that the move is designed to end their opposition to the LNA’s wilful killing and smuggling operations that drain the Libyan people’s resources.