Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing of a Libyan police training centre on Thursday that killed at least 47 people in the worst militant attack since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
“This operation is one in a series of the battle of Abu al-Mughira al-Qahtani, which will not stop until we liberate all Libya,” the group’s Tripoli militancy said.
One of its militants had died carrying out the suicide bomb attack,
it added, but Libyan authorities have not confirmed that detail.
The truck bomb exploded at the police training centre in the coastal
town of Zliten just as hundreds of recruits had gathered for a morning
meeting. More than 100 people were wounded, many by shrapnel.
Since a Nato-backed revolt ousted Gaddafi, turmoil in Libya has
deepened, with two rival governments and a range of armed factions
locked in a struggle for control of the Opec state and its oil wealth.
In the chaos, Isis militants have grown in strength. They now control
the city of Sirte and are targeting Tripoli and the country’s oil
infrastructure, including the shelling this week of two major oil export
terminals in the east.
Western powers are pushing Libya’s factions to back a UN-brokered
national unity government to join forces against Isis, but the agreement
faces major resistance from several factions on the ground.
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