You're reading: Three armed men killed in Libya as violence escalates

 

TRIPOLI - Libyan security forces on Sunday killed three armed men suspected of being behind seven failed bomb plots, a state spokesman said, in the first incident of its kind since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in October.

Several violent incidents have rocked Libya in recent days
and on Sunday the International Committee of the Red Cross
announced it was suspending its activity in the country’s second
biggest city after one of its compounds was attacked with
grenades and rockets.

Security forces surprised the three armed men inside a farm
near Aziziya, 25 miles (40 km) south of Tripoli, in possession
of the same kind of explosives used in seven previous bomb
plots, said Saleh Darhoub, spokesman of the National
Transitional Council.

Five members of the security forces were wounded during the
clash, Darhoub told reporters without giving details on the
nature of the targets, which he described as “vital”, or saying
whether there were possible links between the armed men and
recent explosions.

On Saturday, a car bomb exploded near the offices of the
military police in Tripoli, three days after a strong explosion
rocked military intelligence offices in the eastern city of
Benghazi.

On Sunday, a security source blamed the car bombing, which
slightly wounded a Tunisian national, on a personal vendetta.

On Tuesday, seven Iranian relief workers were abducted in
Benghazi by a group of armed men. The aid workers had just
started a mission in the country as guests of the Libyan Red
Crescent Association.