Nine people were killed and up to 15 wounded when suspected Islamist militants tried to storm the Libyan government security headquarters in Benghazi yesterday, army officials and medics said.
The dead were soldiers and police officers, army officials said. Huge explosions could be heard during an early morning firefight that lasted more than an hour. Special forces later secured the headquarters, near the city centre.
The bodies of two soldiers, kidnapped by militants during the attack, were found later bearing signs of torture, a medical source said.
Libya’s central government blamed Islamist militants of the Ansar al-Shariya group.
“Armed brigades, including those called Ansar al-Shariya and other criminal groups, attacked with light and heavy weapons the security headquarters in Benghazi,” a statement said.
The government is struggling to control armed groups, militias and brigades of former rebels who helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and refuse to disarm.
Special forces have often clashed with Islamist militants in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city that dominates the volatile eastern region, including from Ansar al-Shariya, listed as a terrorist organisation by the US.
Armed men also attacked the apartment of Benghazi’s security chief Colonel Ramadan al-Wahishi. He was not hurt, a security official said.
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 on Tuesday, killing two people and wounding two.
Western and Arab allies are training Libya’s fledgling armed forces but the military is still no match for the heavily armed ex-rebels and militias.