Gunmen shot dead the intelligence chief for eastern Libya in Benghazi city yesterday, a security spokesman said.
Two masked gunmen opened fire on Colonel Ibrahim al-Senussi’s car as it travelled through the port city, said Ibrahim al-Sharaa, spokesman for Benghazi’s Joint Security Room. He was taken to hospital but died of his wounds.
Car bombings and assassinations of soldiers and police officers have become common in Benghazi, where a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-packed minibus outside a special forces camp last week, killing two people.
Libya’s weak central government is struggling to control armed groups, militias and brigades of former rebels who helped oust long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi in the 2011 civil war and who now refuse to disarm.
Most countries have closed their consulates in Benghazi and some foreign airlines have stopped flying to the city
Most countries have closed their consulates in Benghazi and some foreign airlines have stopped flying to the city since the US ambassador and three other Americans were killed in an Islamist militant attack in September 2012.
Meanwhile a Libyan minister said yesterday the government is committed to implementing an agreement with rebels occupying two ports in its east and hopes the Ras Lanuf and Es Sider export terminals will reopen soon,
On Wednesday, rebel leaders had accused Tripoli of not fulfilling its part of an agreement struck in April to reopen four seized ports, two of which have been already reopened.
“Both sides are committed to the agreement... Two ports have been reopened, Hariga and Zueitina. God willing, Ras Lanuf and Es Sider will reopen soon,” Justice Minister Salah al-Merghani said in the first official reaction.
He acknowledged there was an “administrative slowness” in implementing the deal but that was no reason for concern.
The government was committed to its obligations such as paying salaries for the rebels being integrated to a government force from which they had defected when they seized the ports. “Some people are trying to exploit this politically,” he told reporters, without naming anyone.
The rebel leaders said on Wednesday they would boycott the new Prime Minister Ahmed Maiteeq and keep Ras Lanuf and Es Sider ports shut for now. They warned they would take action if Tripoli did not fulfill the agreement, a veiled threat to close the Hariga and Zueitina terminals again.