At least 20 pickup trucks loaded with
antiaircraft guns blocked the roads while men armed with AK-47s and
sniper rifles directed traffic away from the building in Tripoli,
witnesses said.
Armed groups also tried unsuccessfully to storm the Ministry of Interior and the state news agency, the prime minister said.
“These attacks will never get us down and we
will not surrender,” the prime minister, Ali Zeidan, told a news
conference. “Those who think the government is frustrated are wrong. We
are very strong and determined.”
Tension between the government and armed
militias has been rising in recent weeks since a campaign began to
dislodge the groups from their strongholds in the capital.
Since Gaddafi was toppled by Western-backed
rebels in 2011, Libya has been awash with weapons and roving armed bands
that are increasingly attacking state and foreign institutions. Last
week, a car bomb destroyed about half of the French Embassy, in the
worst attack against a Western country since the killing of the American
ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, in an attack on the United States
mission in Benghazi last September.
The show of force on Sunday was to demand that
a law be passed banning Gaddafi-era officials from senior government
positions. The law could force out several ministers as well as the
congress leader, depending on the wording adopted.
Some officials employed in the Foreign Ministry had worked for the regime.
Libya’s legislature, the General National
Congress, had been prevented from voting on the bill in March, when
protesters barricaded assembly members inside a building for several
hours and demanded they adopt the law.
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