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3 soldiers killed in eastern Libya

29 November 2013 00:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Three Libyan army soldiers were killed and four others injured on Thursday in a new wave of violence near the Libyan eastern city of Benghazi, local security and medical sources told Xinhua, APA reports.

Three men from the Mushat - a branch of the Special Forces - were killed and four others injured in clashes in the area of Sidi Khalifa, near the capital of the eastern region of Cyrenaica.

The spokesperson of Jalaa Hospital in Benghazi, Fadia Al Barghati, told Xinhua "The hospital had received at least three dead soldiers and another three wounded in the ranks of the Libyan army belonging to the Marine Corps."

A security source on conditions of anonymity said "the soldiers were killed during the clashes between the army and armed group after the militia tried to enter the city of Benghazi from the south-eastern region of Sidi Khalifa."

Colonel Nasser Bousnina, commander of Al Amoudi Brigade based in Benina Airport in Benghazi, said "reconnaissance planes currently flying in the area did not monitor any queues trying to enter the city."

On Thursday morning, a Libyan soldier of First Infantry Brigade was shot dead in Benghazi, while in the previous day, five soldiers of the Libyan Army Special Forces were killed and another one seriously wounded in assassination operations scattered in the Libyan eastern cities of Benghazi and Derna.

The clashes came after the Libyan army launched attacks against the salafi militia Ansar Al Sharia on Monday in Benghazi, in which seven people were killed and 70 others wounded.