{A car exploded in the eastern city of Benghazi, killing six people including a political activist close to a powerful genera fighting Islamic extremists, officials have said.}<\/p>\n
The explosion on Saturday rocked the downtown Benghazi district of al-Kesh which is lined with busy cafes. The blast killed activist Mohammed Bougages, who was sitting in a cafe, and five others, officials said.<\/p>\n
At least 10 others were wounded, some of whom were in critical condition.<\/p>\n
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the press.<\/p>\n
Bougages was a political activist and the fiery host of a daily talk show called \u201cFrankly\u201d, which is aired on state TV.<\/p>\n
He was an outspoken supporter of General Khalifa Hifter, who has led a campaign against Islamic extremists in Benghazi since 2014.<\/p>\n
Mr. Hifter\u2019s campaign dubbed \u201cOperation Dignity\u201d came in response to dozens of assassinations of activists, judges, and security officers in Benghazi, allegedly at the hands of extremists.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s explosion raised fears of a return to that grim period of assassinations. On Friday, the bodies of 10 unidentified men were found in a dumpster in Benghazi. The bodies bore torture marks and had gunshot wounds to the head, according to a statement by the Support and Reinforcement security unit which found them.<\/p>\n
Mr. Hifter, who is one of Libya\u2019s most divisive figures, has cleared most of Benghazi from extremists except for pockets in the northern and western parts of the city. Seen as a savior in the eastern region, many in western Libya oppose him for perceiving all Islamists as extremists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{A car exploded in the eastern city of Benghazi, killing six people including a political activist close to a powerful genera fighting Islamic extremists, officials have said.} The explosion on Saturday rocked the downtown Benghazi district of al-Kesh which is lined with busy cafes. The blast killed activist Mohammed Bougages, who was sitting in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2712],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-the-hindu"],"bylines":[{"id":2712,"name":"The Hindu","slug":"the-hindu","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2712,"name":"The Hindu","slug":"the-hindu","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29863"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29863"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}