As the residents of a Libyan city urged Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar to run for the presidency, Libya’s National Army Spokesman, Brigadier Ahmed al-Mesmari called on all his staff to participate in the upcoming general polls. A well-informed Egyptian source told Asharq al-Awsat that LNA chief Haftar and the head of the Government of National Accord, Fayez al-Sarraj, would hold individual meetings in Cairo next week. However, an official close to Haftar denied having “definite information about the possibility of an imminent visit to Egypt,” adding that the field marshal maintained steady communication with Cairo. Meanwhile, residents of Al-Marj city issued a statement, in which they expressed their full support for Haftar in the upcoming presidential elections. “If these elections fail or are manipulated or deferred, we will delegate His Excellency the Marshal to take over the country for a period of four years to organize its affairs, until a constitution is approved by all … the Libyan people,” the statement read. According to the latest statistics provided by the Higher National Electoral Commission, there were 1,831,803 registered voters since the beginning of the registration on December 6. On a different note, a battalion of the LNA announced on Thursday the destruction of two vehicles of weapons smugglers in the Jabal al-Owainat on the Libyan-Sudanese border. In a statement posted on its official Facebook page, “Subul al-Salam” battalion said that its soldiers have burned two cars carrying ammunition in Jabal Al Owainat, after the smugglers of Sudanese nationality refused to surrender, noting that the operation left one dead and several injured in the smugglers’ ranks. In a news conference held on Wednesday, Mesmari said that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the battle to liberate Benghazi from terrorist organizations, stressing that all military operations in the city have ended. “The armed forces offered more than 5,000 martyrs for the cleansing of Benghazi from terrorist groups,” he said.