TRIPOLI: Three suicide bombers attacked Libya’s foreign ministry in Tripoli on Tuesday, killing at least two other people as well as themselves, authorities said.
The three attackers began their assault with a car bomb, damaging vehicles and buildings, and then opened fire on the ministry, a security source said. Two managed to get inside and blow themselves up. The other was killed by ministry guards.
Heavy smoke rose from the building, which was surrounded by security forces, as people were rushed to hospital. The health ministry said that apart from the attackers, three people had been killed and at least 21 injured.
Daesh claimed responsibility for the attack.
Interior Minister Fathi Ali Bashagha said however that apart from the attackers only two people were killed, adding that investigations were continuing into the identity of the assailants.
“Security chaos in Libya offers propitious conditions for IS (Daesh) and other terrorist groups,” Bashagha said at a joint news conference in Tripoli with Foreign Minister Mohamed Taher Siala.
Daesh has been active in Libya in the turmoil since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. The group took control of the coastal city of Sirte in 2015 but lost it late in 2016 to local forces backed by US air strikes.
Siala called for a partial lifting of the UN arms embargo on Libya to help authorities counter militant groups.
“Stability cannot be restored... without a partial lifting of the embargo. It is needed to guarantee security and combat terrorism,” Siala told the news conference.
He said the foreign ministry had been targeted because “it is a symbol of sovereignty.”
“All important documents have been saved,” he said, adding that he deplored the death of one ministry employee in the attack.
The foreign ministry earlier issued a statement saying: “The Libyan people are waging a war on terrorism on behalf of the world.”
The UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) condemned the attack, stressing the need to “prevent terrorist groups from turning Libya into a haven or an arena for their crimes.”
Siala said security arrangements agreed between Libya’s Government of National Accord and the UN after a month of clashes in the south of Tripoli are yet to be implemented.
The interior minister said his department lacked the equipment necessary to restore law and order in Libya.
He said that when he took up his job in October he found “zero weapons and zero vehicles” in the ministry’s warehouses.
“Weakness and a security breakdown” allowed Tuesday’s attackers to storm the foreign ministry and carry out their attack, Bach Agha said.
In September, Daesh claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on the headquarters of Libya’s National Oil Company in the heart of Tripoli which left two dead and 10 wounded.
Four months earlier, it claimed an attack on the electoral commission’s headquarters which left 14 dead.
In April, the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) launched an operation to track down Daesh fighters operating in areas of western Libya under its control.
Last month Daesh claimed responsibility for an attack on militia forces in southeastern Libya in which at least nine people were killed.
The US military has regularly carried out strikes on militants in Libya, particularly south of Sirte.
The GNA was set up under a 2015 UN-brokered deal, but a rival administration based in the country’s east aligned with military strongman Khalifa Haftar refuses to recognize its authority.
Rival Libyan leaders had agreed to a Paris-brokered deal in May to hold a nationwide election by the end of the year.
But instability, territorial disputes and divisions have delayed plans for elections.