Libya’s military seizes narcotics after firefight with smugglers

Libya's military brigade seized more than 1.3 million narcotic pills after a firefight with ​smugglers in a southeastern town that injured three soldiers, ‌the military said on Friday.

The North African nation has become a major regional transit hub for synthetic drugs and other narcotics en route to ​domestic users and elsewhere in the continent, the UN ​said in January.

In a statement, a military media unit ⁠said the Subul al-Salam infantry brigade in Kufra, about ​1,700 km (1,000 miles) from the capital, Tripoli, targeted hideouts used by ​traffickers of narcotics and illicit goods.

Pictures it posted showed soldiers standing around tens of transparent plastic small bags filled with round white pills bearing ​the number one and a sentence in black that read "made ​in Germany".

The brigade operates under the Land Forces General Staff and owes responsibility to the ‌military ⁠commander Khalifa Haftar of the eastern-based Libyan National Army.

The statement gave no value for the drugs seized.

Drug gangs have exploited the tumultuous situation in the country since 2011, the United Nations ​Office on Drugs ​and Crime ⁠said in a January report.

Libya plunged into a prolonged period of internal conflict and division after ​former ruler Muammar Gaddafi was toppled in a NATO-backed uprising ​that year.

Five ⁠people were handed death sentences by a court in the Western Mountains region, about 160 km (100 miles) southwest of Tripoli, for importing ⁠more ​than 2 million pills of psychotropic substances, ​the attorney general said in October.

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