Security situation worsens in Benghazi http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2012/08/01/feature-01

The security situation in Benghazi is getting all the more volatile, with the proliferation of bombings, assassinations and abductions.

A bomb blast shook the department of military intelligence in the eastern city early Wednesday (August 1st), causing material damage to the building, Libyan security sources said.

"The department of military intelligence was bombed," a senior security officer told AFP, adding that the level of damage to the two-storey building suggested it was hit by an improvised explosive device.

On Tuesday, gunmen kidnapped a seven-member delegation from the Iranian Red Crescent visiting the eastern city, the Libyan Red Crescent reported.

The Iranians were heading to the Tibesti hotel when an armed group intercepted them. They were loaded into a different car and whisked away to an unknown location, a statement said.

The driver of their vehicle, a local volunteer, was not taken.

The delegation arrived in Libya on Monday at the invitation of the Libyan Red Crescent to discuss "various co-operation prospects in the field of humanitarian aid".

At least ten members of the former internal security services were assassinated in the past few weeks, a security source told Magharebia on condition of anonymity.

Most officials, however, decline to comment on the subject.

Major General Khalifa Haftar, the commander of Libyan ground forces, escaped an assassination attempt on Sunday. His motorcade was targeted while he was returning home, Haftar told media sources. A speeding vehicle carrying four people fired on his convoy and fled.

"This is not the first attempt to assassinate me, but it seems that the series of killings of army officers and their forced removal did not end, and the threats and intimidation that some of them receive will not end until security takes control in an official way!" Haftar told Magharebia in a phone interview.

Haftar said that there was a clear war waged by militias against the police and the military.

He denied any link between the incident and the killing of rebel military leader Abdel Fattah Younes, accusing remnants of pro-Kadhafi groups of the failed assassination attempt.

The attack may be tied to the fatal shooting of Suleiman Buzraidah a day earlier in Benghazi. Buzraidah, a colonel in the former regime who later worked for the NTC, was number 12 on a death list drawn up by an Islamist vigilante group. The group reportedly has a death list of some 106 Kadhafi-era officials.

Last Sunday, security forces thwarted an attempt to storm the criminal investigation headquarters in Benghazi on Sunday, while the Department of Detection of Explosives at the Security Directorate dismantled an explosive device placed inside a school in the Bou Hadima area.

On the same day, a 40kg explosive device was found discovered under the bridge leading to the main entrance to the Tibesti Hotel.

On Friday, Benghazi police dismantled two bombs, each containing 40kg of explosives. The first was planted behind the Criminal Investigation Department and the second behind the National Security Patrols Department building.

The amount planted was sufficient to cause catastrophic incidents at the departments and the areas around, said a technician in charge of dismantling.

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Benghazi residents are getting increasingly frustrated with the prevailing lawlessness and call for restoring the rule of law.

"I do not agree with such extra-legal killings!" said Ali Younes, a young man from the city. "We call for activating the legislation with utmost speed, because the danger is threatening the country with the large number of killings of individuals and kidnappings of those whose fates we don't know."

"After the targeting of former members of the Internal Security agency comes the turn of members of Criminal Investigation and the Security Directorate," computer teacher Ibrahim Issa said.

"Are we going to see later the targeting of teachers and staff working at state institutions on the grounds that they worked with the regime, as they say?" he asked. "When will the blood and explosions end?"

[ED NOTES:THAT LAST COMMENT BY A, ALI YOUNES..'THE 'YOUNG MAN IN THE CITY'',ANYONE ELSE FIND IT SUSPECT?SOUNDS MORE LIKE AN OFFICIAL STATEMENT THEN A REGULAR CITIZEN IN BENGHAZY ..WHO KNOWS,...WHO WOULD KIDNAPP IRANS RED CRESCENT WORKERS?HMM..MY MONEY IS ON NATO MERCENARIES..