Car Bomb Blast In Libya Kills 20

Tripoli: The death toll of the double car bomb attacks that hit the Libyan city of Benghazi has risen above 20, a hospital official said. An army officer has been killed while his senior was injured.

"The reported death toll is from Al-Jalaa hospital alone. There are other cases that have been transferred to other hospitals and clinics in the city," Fadia Al-Barghathi, a hospital official told Xinhua.

Al-Barghathi confirmed that the hospital has so far received 22 bodies and 21 injured persons. Two car bomb explosions hit Benghazi on Tuesday night. The first one was in front of a mosque as worshipers were leaving after the night prayers. The second one exploded at the same spot as the ambulances arrived.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet. Milud Al-Zwai, a spokesman for the army's special forces, told the media that the commander of the Special Investigation Unit, Ahmed Ali Al-Fitouri, was also killed in one of the attacks.

Brigadier General Mahdi Al-Falah, a senior Libyan intelligence official, was injured in the first explosion. These were the most violent bombings in Benghazi in months, after the army took control of the entire city and the completion of operations against terrorist groups there.

The UN Support Mission in Libya (Unsmil) earlier on Tuesday condemned the attacks

IANS