Gunmen have attacked a car carrying Libyan prime minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah who escaped unharmed in an apparent assassination attempt in Tripoli on Thursday morning.
Witnesses say the unknown assailants sprayed bullets at his car as it was speeding through the Libyan capital in the early morning hours.
The attackers later fled, sources close to the PM say.
In the days prior to the apparent attempt on his life Prime Minister Dbeibah, 62 has been at loggerheads with some members of Libya’s government over the country’s next government.
The Libyan parliament, which had openly supported armed militias based in the east of the country, remains strongly opposed to the unity government and vowed to conduct an election to determine Dbeibah’s successor.
Dbeibah whose government is backed by the UN said he would relinquish power to an elected successor.
Appointed prime minister last March Dbeibah became head of the Government of National Unity (GNU) which was tasked with presiding over the process leading to elections in December last year but was undermined by bitter wranglings.
Officials with presidential ambitions have clashed regularly over the electoral code, and Dbeibah’s own future.
He had vowed not to run for president.
Carved up by armed groups, Libya has been caught in a long drawn-out civil strife since strongman Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in an armed uprising in 2011.
WN/as/APA