TRIPOLI, June 14 (Xinhua) -- The clashes between the Libyan army and armed militants on Thursday killed five army soldiers in the oil crescent region, the army said in a statement.
"Battalion 302 Thunderbolt lost 4 of its members in the battles of the oil crescent region, while another soldier of the Tanks Battalion was killed," the army's thunderbolt battalion said.
The statement did not include casualties of the militants.
Ibrahim Jathran, former chief of the Oil Installation Guards who was expelled by the army in 2016, and the militant group called Benghazi Defense Brigades, on Thursday launched an attack on the oil crescent region and clashed with the army forces securing the area.
The attack caused losses of 240 thousand barrels of oil, and evacuated all government employees, according to the state-owned National Oil Corporation.
The oil crescent region is located some 500 km east of the capital Tripoli. It contains the country's largest oil ports.
The army's information department earlier said that "Benghazi Defense Brigades tried to penetrate into the oil crescent region and ignite an oil reservoir in Veba oil field of al-Harouge oil company, before our forces defeated and expelled them. The air force targeted those fleeing."
In the first official comment, Jathran claimed the attack is a "battle to lift the injustice of the people of the oil crescent, and not a battle for a personal, tribal, regional, or partisan purpose."
"The oil will never be a playing card to the conflicting parties. The oil supply will continue uninterrupted under the supervision of the National Oil Corporation," Jathran said in a televised statement on the local Al-Nabaa TV channel.
On September 2016, the army took control of the oil crescent region and expelled Jathran's forces, who closed major oil ports and cost the country billions of U.S. dollars of losses.
The UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez Serraj condemned the attack, calling it an "irresponsible escalation pushes the country into civil war that the Libyan strive to avoid."