The UN Security Council is preparing to meet to discuss hostilities in Libya where conflict between rival militias is continuing to escalate after heavy fighting reduced Tripoli’s international airport to a battlefield, destroying planes and terminal buildings.

Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz is due to attend the meeting, which is set to take place on 17 July in New York.

The latest conflict broke out on the morning of 13 July, as Islamist brigades from the port city of Misrata launched a dawn raid on the airport, which is controlled by rival anti-Islamist brigades from the powerful mountain town of Zintan.

Since then there have been prolonged periods of heavy fighting with seemingly random shelling and barrages of GRAD rockets, flattening buildings in the airport area. The government has said it is considering asking for international military assistance.

In a written statement, it said that “a potential request for international forces to solidify the state’s capabilities” had been discussed in an emergency session.

Zintan militias remain in control of the airport and neither side in the conflict has yet showed any sign of backing down, despite calls from the Libyan government, the UN and the UK.

The battle for the airport has plunged the country into turmoil, sparking a strike by air traffic controllers and the cancellation of all commercial international flights to and from the country.

The heavy fighting has prompted a number of international organisations to evacuate staff. On 14 July, the UN Support Mission in Libya said it was pulling out workers due to the “prevailing security conditions in the country”.

Oil and gas multinational Total has also pulled workers out of the country because of the escalation in fighting.

Libyan exports currently stand at about 600,000 barrels a day (b/d), about twice as much as two weeks ago, but still a fraction of the 1.4m b/d the country was exporting in the same period last year.