
Tripoli: Libya's legislative assembly gathered on Sunday to vote on a law banning officials who worked for Muammar Gaddafi from the new administration, a step that could potentially force out the prime minister and other senior officials.
The wording has been wrangled over for months and Sunday's vote has been prompted by the actions of heavily armed groups who have taken control of two government ministries and say they will not leave until the legislation is passed.
"It's a very unfair and extreme law, but we need to put national interests first in order to solve the crisis," said Tawfiq Breik, spokesman for the liberal National Forces Alliance (NFA) bloc.
On Sunday, more than a dozen vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft weapons and machine guns remained parked outside the Justice Ministry, and the Foreign Ministry has been similarly encircled for the past week....
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12:47 AM, May 06, 2013

Tripoli: French embassy in Libya was hit by what appeared to be a car bomb on Tuesday, injuring two guards in the first such attack in the capital Tripoli since the end of the 2011 war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. Residents living near the embassy compound, in the capital's Hay Andalus area, said they heard two blasts early in the morning around 7 am (0500 GMT). "We think it was...

12:55 PM, Apr 23, 2013

Tripoli: World soccer's governing body FIFA has lifted a ban on Libya hosting soccer matches, the Libyan Football Federation said, despite the North African country still facing precarious security after the 2011 war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. FIFA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The move comes after a decision last month by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to again allow continental club competition matches to be...

06:05 PM, Apr 18, 2013

Tripoli: A security official says the leader of an Islamic extremist militia in Libya suspected of involvement in an attack in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador has been shot. Sufyan bin Qumu, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, was shot on Sunday in the area of al-Thruwn in the eastern city of Darna, a stronghold of Islamic extremists. The security official says he was taken to a nearby hospital and...

08:43 AM, Apr 15, 2013

Syria's civil war is pushing more people than ever to flee the country. Over the past few months, the exodus has accelerated and now the UN is reporting a dramatic milestone. The number of refugees from the conflict has passed the one-million mark. ...

10:05 AM, Mar 07, 2013

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton choked up on Wednesday as she defended her handling of the September 11 attack on the US mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi, an event that threatens to stain her legacy and any presidential hopes she may still harbor. ...

09:36 PM, Jan 23, 2013

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to testify before Congress on the attack on their consulate in Benghazi, Libya which left its ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead on September 11, 2012. She is also expected to appear before the House foreign affairs committee on January 23. ...

07:30 AM, Jan 16, 2013

Libya has said that Saif al-Islam, the son of late leader Muammar Gaddafi whose regime was overthrown in 2011 by opposition forces with NATO's assistance, will go on trial in February. ...

06:03 PM, Jan 05, 2013

The State Department made a "grievous mistake" in keeping the US mission in Benghazi open despite inadequate security and increasingly alarming threat assessments in the weeks before a deadly attack by militants, a Senate committee said on December 31. A report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee on the September 11 attacks on the US mission and a nearby CIA annex, in which the US ambassador to Libya and three...

11:50 AM, Jan 01, 2013

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify before a key Congressional committee on the deadly attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi in which the US Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed. ...

10:36 AM, Dec 08, 2012

United Nations: India was among the 39 countries that voted against a UN General Assembly draft resolution which called for abolishing the death penalty, saying every nation had the "sovereign right" to determine its own legal system. The non-binding resolution called for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. It was adopted on Monday at the General Assembly's Third Committee, which deals with social and...

07:14 PM, Nov 20, 2012

On the anniversary of the capture and killing of Moammar Gaddafi, Libya is still grappling with the legacy of his four decades of rule. ...

09:59 AM, Oct 21, 2012

Tripoli: On the anniversary of the capture and killing of Moammar Gaddafi, Libya is still grappling with the legacy of his four decades of rule as the interim government and the dictator's former spokesman engaged in a war of words amid the ongoing chaos. The Libyan government said Saturday its forces had detained Gaddafi's high profile spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, but an online recording from a man purporting to be Ibrahim...

09:10 AM, Oct 21, 2012

Sometimes, turning full circle takes no time. Eighteen months after NATO forces bombed Qadhafi's Libya citing their responsibility to protect the citizens of Benghazi, U.S. ...

12:29 PM, Sep 26, 2012

Libya: An Islamist militia was driven out of the city of Benghazi early on Saturday in a surge of protest against the armed groups that control large parts of Libya more than a year after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. A spokesman for Ansar al-Sharia said the group had evacuated its bases in Benghazi "to preserve security in the city". In a dramatic sign of Libya's fragility, after sweeping through...

08:59 PM, Sep 22, 2012

Washington: US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says it was a "terrorist attack" that killed the American ambassador to Libya and three others, and she says the US will not rest until those responsible are brought to justice. Clinton told reporters on Friday at the State Department that, quote, "what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." And she said the US would track down, quote, the "terrorists who...

10:45 AM, Sep 22, 2012

Benghazi: Pro-government demonstrators stormed the headquarters of the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia group in Benghazi on Friday and evicted fighters from the site in a sweep of militia bases in the Libyan city, witnesses said. Militia fighters made a stand at another heavily fortified compound across the eastern city, firing on demonstrators with heavy machine guns and wounding several people, protesters said. Ansar al-Sharia has been linked to the attack on...

10:08 AM, Sep 22, 2012

Washington: The assault on the US consulate in Benghazi last week in which four Americans died was a "terrorist attack" that may have had an al Qaeda connection, a top US counterterrorism official told Congress on Wednesday. Rocket-propelled grenades and mortars struck the consulate on September 11, the anniversary of the 2001 attacks on the United States. US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died. "They were killed in...

08:36 AM, Sep 20, 2012

Washington: The al Qaeda's affiliate in North Africa Tuesday urged Muslims in the region to kill US government representatives and called the death of ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens a "gift", CNN reported. "We encourage all Muslims to continue to demonstrate and escalate their protests... and to kill their ambassadors and representatives or to expel them to cleanse our land from their wickedness," said a statement from the Al Qaeda...

11:21 PM, Sep 18, 2012

An amateur video, showing a few Libyans trying to save US Ambassador Chris Stevens, after the embassy in Benghazi came under attack over the movie, has surfaced. ...

12:48 PM, Sep 18, 2012