{{An aide to Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has been kidnapped on the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli, government officials say.}}<\/p>\n
Mohamed al-Ghattous is believed to have been seized on Sunday in the Ghot al-Roman district as he was driving from his hometown of Misrata.<\/p>\n
His car was found abandoned and the authorities have launched a search.<\/p>\n
Also on Sunday, Mr Zeidan warned that members of his government had received death threats.<\/p>\n
He told a routine news briefing they were working under “very difficult conditions” since coming to power four months ago.<\/p>\n
A cabinet source, speaking anonymously, told reporters Mr Ghattous “was without doubt taken at a fake checkpoint”.<\/p>\n
It is thought the kidnappers could have been posing as security personnel.<\/p>\n
“Nobody knows where he is. They left his car behind, probably they thought it could be traced,” a government source told the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
The BBC’s Rana Jawad in Tripoli says there has been a sharp increase in security threats against the cabinet since the government announced it was taking steps to disarm and disband the militias.<\/p>\n
Last week, the prime minister’s building was briefly surrounded by an armed group demanding his resignation, and on Sunday, the justice ministry was similarly surrounded for several hours.<\/p>\n
The government is still struggling to consolidate its powers over the many militias which formed after the war that toppled Col Muammar Gaddafi.<\/p>\n
But out correspondent says there is a widespread view amongst Libyans that their government has become seriously locked in a power struggle with militias trying to keep their influence on the streets of Libya.<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{An aide to Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has been kidnapped on the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli, government officials say.}} Mohamed al-Ghattous is believed to have been seized on Sunday in the Ghot al-Roman district as he was driving from his hometown of Misrata. His car was found abandoned and the authorities have launched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-6901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","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":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6901"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=6901"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=6901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}