BENGHAZI, Libya - Up to 12 Libyan soldiers were killed and 60 wounded in a double suicide bombing and clashes in the port city of Benghazi on Thursday, medics said. Four people were also killed in a separate attack by suspected Islamists on an army checkpoint in Qubah, east of Benghazi, hospital officials said.
Libya is being ravaged by violence as the armed groups which helped topple Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 turn their guns on each other in a struggle for the country's vast oil resources and political domination. In Benghazi, special army forces allied to brigades of former general Khalifa Haftar have been fighting Islamist brigades including Ansar al-Sharia, accused by Washington of killing the U.S. ambassador to Libya in 2012. Western powers worry Libya will become a failed state as a weak central government cannot control competing militia in a country awash with weapons. The elected parliament has relocated to the remote eastern city of Tobruk after effectively losing control of the capital Tripoli, where an alliance of armed groups hold sway.
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