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Anas al-Liby
Libya’s PM Ali Zeidan has said his brief kidnap this week was an “attempted coup”, blaming his political opponents for the attack.
In a TV address to the nation, Ali Zeidan said an unnamed political party in the congress was behind the abduction.
Ali Zeidan was seized from a Tripoli hotel on Thursday and held for several hours by armed militiamen.
He praised the armed groups that came to rescue him and later called for calm in the increasingly lawless country.
In the TV address with members of his cabinet standing staunchly around him, Ali Zeidan said that his kidnap “bears the hallmarks of an attempted coup d’etat against legitimacy”.
Ali Zeidan has said his brief kidnap this week was an “attempted coup”, blaming his political opponents for the attack
“A political party”, he said, was behind what he described as the “criminal and terrorist act”.
Referring to his political opponents as a “dangerous minority”, Ali Zeidan said they had tried to secure enough votes in the congress to have him dismissed.
“When they failed to bring down the government through democratic means, they resorted to the use of force,” he added.
Ali Zeidan has previously spoken of the conservative parties in the assembly trying to undermine his government, and many now will be watching to see if this latest short-lived abduction will become a game-changer in Libya’s political landscape, our correspondent adds.
The US, UK and France, along with the UN, have condemned the abduction and pledged their support for Libya’s transition to democracy.
The motive of the abduction is unclear but some militias had been angered by last Saturday’s US commando raid in Tripoli to capture senior al-Qaeda suspect Anas al-Liby.
Many militias are under the pay of the defense or interior ministries – in the absence of an effective police force or military – but their allegiance and who really controls them is in doubt.
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Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has called for “rationality and wisdom” after being freed from the custody of militiamen.
Ali Zeidan was abducted from a Tripoli hotel and held for several hours by armed men whose identity has yet to be confirmed.
In a cabinet meeting, PM Ali Zeidan thanked “real revolutionaries” who took part in a security operation to free him.
The motive of the abduction is unclear but some militias had been angered by a US commando raid to capture senior al-Qaeda suspect Anas al-Liby.
Many militia groups saw the raid in Tripoli on Saturday as a breach of Libyan sovereignty and there is growing pressure on the government to explain if it was involved.
One group, the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR), said it had captured Ali Zeidan, claiming it was acting on orders from the prosecutor general. But the justice ministry denied this.
The LROR said its actions had not been related to Anas al-Liby’s detention.
The official Lana news agency also named another formal rebel group, the Brigade for the Fight against Crime, as being involved.
Ali Zeidan has called for “rationality and wisdom” after being freed from the custody of militiamen
Two years after the overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya still has no constitution and divisions between secular and Islamist forces have paralyzed parliament.
The government has been struggling to contain the numerous militias who control many parts of the country.
Ali Zeidan’s cabinet meeting following his release was shown live on Libya’s al-Ahrar television.
He thanked those who had helped free him but gave no details about them or the abductors.
He said: “I salute the revolutionaries who had an important role. The real revolutionaries, those who rose above greedy demands, I salute them for what they did in this affair.”
Ali Zeidan urged them to “assimilate into the state, and play an active role in it through its civilian and military institutions”.
He added: “Only with an army and the police can a state exist.”
The prime minister said of his capture: “These are accidental things from the revolution’s overflow and they will disappear.”
Ali Zeidan also said Libya would “regain its health” and be “an active, positive nation”.
He assured foreigners the incident had happened “within the context of Libyan political wrangles”.
Ali Zeidan ended by calling for “caution and rationality in handling this matter”.
He had been taken in a pre-dawn raid on the Corinthia Hotel by more than 100 armed men.
Photographs circulating online showed Ali Zeidan being surrounded and led away. There were no reports of violence during his capture.
The prime minister was reportedly held at the interior ministry anti-crime department in Tripoli, where an official said he was treated well.
In a news conference shortly before the release was announced, the government condemned the “criminal act” of his detention and said it would not give in to “blackmail”.
The LROR is one of a number of militias operating in Libya which are nominally attached to government ministries but often act independently and, correspondents say, often have the upper hand over police and army forces.
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Libya’s PM Ali Zeidan has returned to his office after being held for several hours by militiamen loosely allied to the government.
The Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room said it had captured Ali Zeidan in Tripoli, claiming it was acting on orders from the prosecutor general.
The justice ministry denied this.
The militia was one of several groups angered by a US commando raid on Libyan soil on Saturday in which senior al-Qaeda suspect Anas al-Liby was seized.
Many saw the raid as a breach of Libyan sovereignty. There is growing pressure on the government to explain if it was involved but in a statement, the Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR) said its actions had not been related to Anas al-Liby’s detention.
The official Lana news agency also named another formal rebel group, the Brigade for the Fight against Crime, as being involved.
Libya’s PM Ali Zeidan has returned to his office after being held for several hours by militiamen loosely allied to the government
State TV broadcast live as Ali Zeidan arrived at his office in Tripoli. There was a high security presence as his car pulled up outside. The prime minister made no immediate comment but was expected to give a news briefing shortly.
Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdelaziz said earlier he had no details on the circumstances of the release.
It was unclear whether the militia had released the prime minister voluntarily or whether other security forces had intervened.
Ali Zeidan had been taken in a pre-dawn raid on the Corinthia Hotel by more than 100 armed men.
The LROR said it was acting on the orders of the prosecutor general and in accordance with a section of Libya’s criminal code relating to “crimes and misdemeanors harmful to state security”.
But Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said the prosecutor general had issued no arrest warrant, according to state-run National Libyan TV.
Photographs circulating online and shown on TV showed Ali Zeidan surrounded by what it said were armed men as he was led away. There were no reports of violence during his capture.
The prime minister was reportedly being held at the interior ministry anti-crime department in Tripoli, where an official said he was being treated well.
In a news conference shortly before the release was announced, the government condemned the “criminal act” of his detention and said it would not give in to “blackmail”.
The LROR is one of a number of militias operating in Libya which are nominally attached to government ministries but often act independently and, correspondents say, often have the upper hand over police and army forces.
The government has been struggling to contain the militias, which were heavily involved in the revolt which overthrew Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and, two years on, still control many parts of the country.
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American officials say US Navy SEALs have carried out two separate raids in Libya and Somalia targeting senior Islamist militants.
In Libya, US commandos captured an al-Qaeda leader accused of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Anas al-Liby was seized in the capital Tripoli.
A leader of the al-Shabab group was targeted in southern Somalia, but that raid appears to have failed.
The al-Shabab leader – who has not been identified – is suspected of involvement in last month’s attack in the Westgate shopping centre in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, which left at least 67 people dead.
Al-Shabab has said it carried out the attack on September 21.
Anas al-Liby’s relatives and US officials said he had been seized in the Libyan capital early on Saturday.
He was parking outside his house when three vehicles encircled him, his car’s window was smashed and his gun was seized before he was taken away, his brother Nabih was quoted as saying by AP.
He added that his brother’s wife also saw the attack, describing the abductors as foreign-looking “commandos”.
US Navy SEALs have carried out two separate raids in Libya and Somalia targeting senior Islamist militants
The raid was conducted with the knowledge of the Libyan government, a US official was quoted as saying by CNN.
Anas al-Liby “is currently lawfully detained by the US military in a secure location outside of Libya”, Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
The 49-year-old is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the 1998 US embassy attacks, which killed more than 220 people in Kenya and Tanzania.
He has been indicted in a New York court in connection with the attacks.
Anas al-Liby – whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai – has been on the FBI’s most wanted list for more than a decade with a $5 million bounty on his head.
Al-Qaeda’s leadership has been consistently targeted since the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US special forces in 2011 in Pakistan.
The US defense department has also confirmed that special forces carried out a seaborne operation in Somalia’s coastal town of Barawe on Saturday.
George Little said the forces “were involved in a counter-terrorism operation against a known al-Shabab terrorist”. He declined to provide any further details.
Initial reports in the US media quoted unnamed US officials as saying that the suspect had been captured or killed by US Navy SEALs in the pre-dawn raid on a villa.
However, the officials later said that the SEALs failed to find the intended target, who was not identified.
The raid was carried out by members of Seal Team Six – the same unit that killed bin Laden, a US military official told AP.
The official added that in Barawe the commandos had decided to abort the mission after encountering fierce resistance from al-Shabab fighters.
“The Barawe raid was planned a week and a half ago,” a US security official told the New York Times.
“It was prompted by the Westgate attack,” added the official, who was speaking on the condition of anonymity.
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