The authorities said that the communication outage in Benghazi, the second largest city in Libya, since Friday is due to damage to a fiber optic cable, but the United Nations mission in Libya said that this comes amid armed clashes between the main military force in the city and a smaller faction.

Benghazi is under the control of the Eastern Libyan Forces (Libyan National Army) led by Khalifa Haftar, which is a military alliance that controls the east of the country.

The United Nations mission in Libya expressed its concern on Monday via a social media post regarding the clashes and the ongoing communication outage.

Libyan media also reported that Haftar's forces are clashing with an armed group affiliated with Mahdi al-Baghadi, who led a battalion fighting alongside the army forces before joining the Tripoli government, which Haftar does not recognize.

Haftar's forces have not issued a statement yet, and Reuters was unable to contact them or communicate with residents of Benghazi for comments amid the communication outage.

For his part, the leader of the Barghithi tribe, which is one of the branches of the Awqir tribe that has social influence in the east of the country, mentioned that they are working towards reconciliation between Haftar and al-Baghadi. However, Sheikh of the Barghithi tribe Abdul Salam Abdul Ati al-Baghadi complained that al-Baghadi entered Benghazi in a convoy, stating that it was a security breach.

Libyan media reported that clashes erupted on Friday evening shortly after al-Baghadi arrived at his home in the Salmani area in Benghazi.

Moreover, Mohammed al-Badiri, spokesperson for the Digital Media Office of the Libyan Telecommunications Holding Company, which is the Libyan government telecommunications company based in Tripoli, stated that the reason for the communication outage is the break in the fiber optic cable, which will take some time to repair by the maintenance teams working on it.

Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, who is based in Tripoli, stated today that Benghazi is witnessing "exceptional events," adding that there are armed confrontations in civilian areas in addition to what he described as the deliberate cutting of communications.