Suicide car-bomb kills ten in NW Libya

By Seyfeddin Trablusi

MISURATA, Libya

At least ten people were killed on Thursday when a suicide car-bomb went off near a police checkpoint in Libya’s northwestern city of Misurata, according to Libya’s National Forces Alliance (NFA), a political bloc that supports the country’s UN-backed unity government.

The attack, which occurred at the Abu Grein police checkpoint in southern Misurata, left a number of other people injured, according to an NFA statement issued shortly afterward.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Libya has been locked in a state of violence and turmoil since 2011, when a bloody uprising ended with the ouster and death of longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi.

Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of government -- one in Tobruk and another in capital Tripoli -- each of which boasts its own military capacity and legislative assembly.

Late last year, Libya’s rival governments signed a UN-backed agreement to establish a unity government in an effort to resolve the country’s six-year political standoff.

Anadolu Agency correspondent Ahmet Sait Akcay contributed to this report from Ankara