Armed men killed four policemen and two soldiers yesterday in separate attacks in Libya, including one in a former bastion of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime that was toppled last year, security officials said.
The attackers were radical Islamists
Assailants using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades attacked two police stations in the eastern city of Benghazi – the epicentre of the anti-Gaddafi uprising – after the arrest of a suspect for his alleged role in several assassinations of police and military officers.
“Four policemen were killed and three others wounded in the attack by an armed group against the police in Benghazi,” the security official said on condition of anonymity.
The attackers were “radical Islamists,” he added.
He said the attackers were trying to “free or kill” a prime suspect held for a series of assassinations that targeted army and police officers in Benghazi in recent months. The suspect was arrested on Saturday.
Benghazi was the cradle of the uprising that toppled Gaddafi last year but has increasingly become a focus for jihadist groups, including militants who killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on September 11.
Gunmen also killed two army officers yesterday in the town of Bani Walid, which was one of the last strongholds of Gaddafi’s regime, the military said.
Captains Mohamed al-Zarruk and Ahmed al-Haj Mohamed were killed when reinforcements were called in to Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli, after interior ministry forces were trapped by gunmen.
“Members of the (interior ministry-controlled) high security commission were looking for a man accused of murder when armed men surrounded them,” Bani Walid military commander General Hussein Khalifa said.
“Army units were called to their rescue but they came under fire and two officers were killed.”
Bani Walid has been the scene of repeated clashes between government forces and residents, many of whom rue the overthrow of Gaddafi.
Late yesterday Libya ordered the closure of its borders with four its neighbours as it declared the desert south of its territory a closed military zone in the face of mounting unrest. The National Assembly ordered the “temporary closure of the land borders with Chad, Niger, Sudan and Algeria pending new regulations” on the circulation of people and goods, said a decree carried by the official Lana news agency.