Eight Tunisian citizens working in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, have been kidnapped not far from the city, a local politician told Tunisian state radio yesterday, two days after gunmen snatched 10 staff from the Tunisian consulate.
Libya is in turmoil, with two rival governments and their armed factions battling for control. Armed groups have kidnapped foreign nationals and diplomats in the past year to try to pressure their governments to release jailed Libyan militants.
“Eight young Tunisians were kidnapped... close to Tripoli,” local lawmaker Hussein Yahyaoui told state Tataouin Radio. Tunisian officials did not immediately confirm the abduction.
No group has claimed responsibility for kidnapping the consular staff, but Tripoli’s self-declared government said it hoped they would be freed soon after making contact with the captors and hearing the hostages were in good condition.
The kidnapping follows an attack on theTunisian Consulate, when gunmen snatched 10 members of staff
Tunisian authorities last month arrested Walid Kalib, a member of Libya Dawn, the armed group that took over Tripoli last summer. On Thursday, a Tunisian court refused to free Kalib, who faces kidnapping charges in Tunisia.
Libya Dawn, a loose alliance of former rebel brigades and Islamist-leaning groups, seized power in Tripoli, expelling the existing government, which now operates from the east of the country, and setting up its own. It also reinstated a previous parliament.
Meanwhile another Libyan Islamist militant alliance said it had largely driven Islamic State fighters out of their stronghold city of Derna yesterday after declaring war on the rival group last week.
Street fighting has raged for several days between members of the local Islamist umbrella group Majlis Mujahideen and Islamic State loyalists, who have been trying to increase their influence in the port city for more than a year. Derna, a conservative city where Islamist hardliners resisted Muammar Gaddafi before his 2011 fall, was the first place Islamic State tried to gain support in Libya.
A Majlis spokesman told local Libyan Nabaa TV that more than 70 Islamic State militants had surrendered during the fighting, in which some were severely wounded.
“Ninety per cent of Derna city is now under the control of Majlis,” he said. “Majlis forces are dealing carefully with the snipers around the city.”
Confirming details on the ground is complicated in places like Derna, where there is little state presence. But local residents said on Saturday that armed locals had joined with Majlis forces to push back Islamic State fighters and retake parts of the city.
Islamist militants including those loyal to Islamic State have profited from the security vacuum in Libya, where two rival governments and their armed forces are battling for control four years after the fall of Gaddafi.
An internationally recognised government works in the east and is backed by some former Gaddafi army loyalists. Another self-declared government has governed Tripoli since a group called Libya Dawn, an alliance of former rebels and Islamist-leaning brigades, took over the capital last summer.
Forces from both governments have been fighting Islamic State but also each other in a conflict where military alliances are often fluid and based on local interests.
Majlis, a hardline Islamist outfit linked to former rebel groups who fought Gaddafi, enjoys some local support in Derna going back to the revolution.