At least ten people were killed on Thursday when a suicide car-bomb went off near a police checkpoint in Libya’s northwestern city of Misrata, according to Libya’s National Forces Alliance (NFA), a political bloc that supports the country’s UN-backed unity government.
The attack, which occurred at the Abu Grein police checkpoint in southern Misurata, left a number of other people injured, according to an NFA statement issued shortly afterward.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Libya has been locked in a state of violence and turmoil since 2011, when a bloody uprising ended with the ouster and death of longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of government -- one in Tobruk and another in capital Tripoli -- each of which boasts its own military capacity and legislative assembly.
Late last year, Libya’s rival governments signed a UN-backed agreement to establish a unity government in an effort to resolve the country’s six-year political standoff.
By Seyfeddin Trablusi and Ahmet Sait Akcay
