Libyan warlord faces legal action in US for alleged war crimes

Khalifa Haftar challenged in Virginia by relatives of military leader's alleged victims

A $50m damages claim lodged in a court in Virginia alleges that the Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar, who holds US citizenship, is guilty of war crimes including starvation sieges that forced families to eat grass and tree bark to survive.

The claim against Haftar by two relatives of his alleged victims is an attempt to make him answerable somewhere for the crimes he is accused of perpetrating as head of the Libyan National Army, the major military force in the east of the country, which since 2014 has been in conflict with the Tripoli-based government in the west.