Army General David Rodriguez says Isil has set up training camps in eastern Libya, intensifying fears jihadists are extending their reach through North Africa.

Country is riven by violence amid growing extremist threats some three years after the removal of Muammar Gaddafi in a popular uprising.

Masked attackers in central Libya have kidnapped 13 Coptic Christians after seven were abducted days earlier, said a witness and a priest.

  A car bomb exploded early this afternoon near the Dar Al-Salam Hotel in Torbuk where the House of Representatives has been holding its meetings and several members stay. The House was in session at the time of the blast.

A terrorist attack targeting a hotel in the Libyan town of Tobruk has been described as a “despicable act” by the United Nations Support Mission in the country, UNSMIL.

Forces loyal to Libya’s internationally recognised government have for the first time carried out air strikes on targets in the third largest city of Misrata, which is allied to an armed group that seized the capital in the summer.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein has warned all parties involved in the fighting in Libya that abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law are criminally liable and that the situation in Libya is under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Libya, torn by a growing political divide that threatens to engulf its oilfields, could become the next Syria if it does not patch its divided government and get help battling Islamic militants, the country’s foreign minister said on Tuesday, according to Reuters news agency.

قتل 5 من عناصر الجيش الليبي فجر الاثنين 22 ديسمبر/كانون الثاني في هجوم لمجموعات متطرفة على بوابة أمنية في منطقة الظهر الحمر في وادي بالضحاك جنوب شرقي درنة.

Clashes on Monday between pro-government forces and Islamist militiamen in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi killed 16 people and wounded dozens, security sources and medics said.