Gunmen on Monday stormed the Tunisian consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, diplomatic and security sources told AFP, without reporting casualties.
"The Tunisian consulate has been stormed by armed men," a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity, blaming the attack on a local brigade known as the Partisans of Shariah, or Islamic law.
A Tunisian embassy official in Tripoli confirmed the report and said that employees at the consulate had been threatened ahead of the attack. He said no one was wounded in the assault.
Libyan security forces deployed in mass to the consulate and took back the building from the armed men who withdrew without resistance, an AFP journalist at the scene said.
The violence is the latest in a wave of attacks focused on diplomats and international organisations in Benghazi. The spike in violence comes as the North African nation prepares to elect a general national congress, with the vote set for July 7. Such incidents raise concerns that radical Islamists are on the rise in post-revolutionary Libya.
(Source: AFP)
