Car bomb ‘kills three’ at funeral in Libya’s Benghazi

BENGHAZI, Libya: A car bomb exploded during the funeral of an ex-army commander in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding 15, a hospital said.

A security official said the attack, the first in over a year in the bastion of Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar, targeted servicemen at the funeral of Khalifa al-Mesmari, a special forces chief under Libya´s ousted leader Moamer Qaddafi.

The Benghazi Medical Centre said the blast in a cemetery left three dead and 15 wounded, without specifying whether the victims were civilian or military. Al-Jala, another hospital in the city, said it was treating wounded but did not specify the number.

Benghazi, Libya´s second city and the cradle of the 2011 uprising that overthrew Kadhafi, was hit by years of violence targeting diplomatic offices and security forces after his fall. An attack on the US consulate on September 11, 2012, killed US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The last attack in Benghazi was in May 2018 and left seven people dead. In 2017, Haftar drove hardline Islamists and jihadists out of Benghazi after a brutal three-year battle. He went on to seize Derna, the only city in eastern Libya outside his control.