Libya's eastern leader Haftar says army to take formal control

Libya's eastern-based military leader Khalifa Haftar said on Monday his Libyan National Army (LNA) was accepting a "popular mandate" to rule the country, apparently brushing aside the civilian authorities that nominally govern eastern Libya.Haftar, who launched a war a year ago to grab the capital Tripoli and other parts of northwest Libya, was already widely understood to control the parallel administration that rules in the east.Libya has been split since 2014 between areas controlled by the i