Trucks with anti-aircraft cannon, troops and cement roadblocks protect the five-star hotel in Tobruk that is now the last bastion of Libya's fugitive parliament, Al Arabiya reported.
Holed up in the Dar al-Salam seaside resort and pretending that all is normal, elected legislators debate laws and plan the future from the eastern city where they fled to last month after losing control of Tripoli and much of the country.
A thousand kilometers away across the desert in the capital, a rival parliament sits, internationally unrecognized and made up of members of an earlier assembly whose mandate has expired. It is making its own decisions, taking over ministries and staking a competing claim to ruling the country.