TRIPOLI // A suicide car bomb attack on a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Libya’s restive eastern city of Benghazi killed 13 people today, the government said.
The attack targeted a military checkpoint where people stop before entering the city. The blast also wounded several people who were waiting to be checked.
“The perfidious terrorist attack left 13 martyrs from our best sons including brave soldiers and security men,” the government statement said. It said three other soldiers were wounded, without giving a breakdown in the casualties between soldiers and civilians.
The government announced three days mourning and postponed the country’s independence celebrations, previously set for December 24.
Violence has rocked Libya over the past two years after the end of the eight-month civil war that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The attack was the first known suicide bombing in Libya since the fall of Qaddafi.
On Saturday, knife-wielding protesters stormed the headquarters of Libya’s largest telecoms provider and forced an eight-hour shutdown of internet access in the south and west of the country.
Dozens of protesters calling for the prime minister, Ali Zeidan, to resign occupied the headquarters of Libyan Telecom and Technology in the eastern suburbs of the capital, Tripoli, forcing staff to cut internet service, said the company’s communications chief, Mourad Bilal.
Besides calling for the prime minister’s ouster the group condemned the blockade of vital oil terminals in eastern Libya by local security guards demanding regional autonomy.
* Agencies