TRIPOLI: Libya’s prime minister said he would reshuffle the cabinet and reorganise the government to cope with the “urgent” situation in the country following killings in the eastern city of Benghazi that sparked violent demonstrations.
Hundreds took to the streets overnight to denounce the assassination of a prominent political activist and critic of the Muslim Brotherhood, Abdelsalam Al Mosmary, who was shot dead on Friday after leaving a mosque in Benghazi.
The demonstrations turned violent, and yesterday protesters attacked the Benghazi and Tripoli offices of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party and the headquarters of a liberal political coalition in the capital.
Mosmary, one of the first activists to take to the streets in Libya’s February 2011 uprising, was an outspoken opponent of the Brotherhood, whose Islamist political wing is the second biggest party in Libya’s General National Congress (GNC). Two military officials were also killed in Benghazi on Friday.
“We are about to make a cabinet reshuffle and decrease the number of ministries to ensure a better performance to face the urgent situation,” Ali Zeidan told a news conference, without giving details. “What is happening is an attempt to obstruct the state’s progression.”
Zeidan referred to the assassinations in Benghazi but made no reference to the storming of the parties’ offices.
Libya’s border with Egypt was closed to prevent Mosmary’s killers from fleeing, he said, with only cargo trucks allowed to pass.
Earlier yesterday, protesters in Benghazi invaded and set fire to a building housing the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, the Justice and Construction Party (JCP), witnesses said.
“They shouted ‘Gather your belongings. Benghazi wants you out’,” Benghazi resident Rami Al Shahibi said.
Hundreds gathered outside Benghazi’s Tibesti hotel, one of the main squares in the city for demonstrations, for funeral prayers for Mosmary before heading to a cemetery. They continued to shout anti-Brotherhood slogans.
In Tripoli, a crowd stormed JCP headquarters before heading on to ransack the headquarters of the liberal National Forces Alliance, the country’s biggest political party founded by wartime rebel prime minister Mahmoud Jibril.
There has been rising opposition in Libya to the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood.
REUTERS
