Up to 10 foreign workers are missing after a suspected militant attack on a Libyan oilfield, and there is a possibility that they have been taken hostage, Czech and Libyan officials said on Saturday.
Foreigners have increasingly become targets amid Libya’s turmoil, where two rival governments are battling for control and Muslim extremists have increased their numbers in the chaos that followed former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s ouster four years ago.
The workers missing after the assault last week on al-Ghani field, included a Czech, an Austrian and others from Bangladesh and the Philippines, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Lubomir Zaoralek said.
“We are examining the possibility that a kidnapping has taken place,” Zaoralek told reporters.
Libya’s oil security forces on Friday said that they had retaken control of the oilfield after suspected Muslim militants attacked the facility, killing 11 guards.
Several guards were beheaded, one official said.
There had been no contact with any group claiming responsibility, Zaoralek said, adding that his ministry was certain that the Czech citizen had not been killed during the attack.
At least seven foreigners including an Austrian, a Czech, Filipinos and a national of an African nation were missing after the al-Ghani attack, Libya’s state oil company said.
“Foreigners from an Austrian oil services company, operating in the field, are still missing since the attack. We do not know their fate,” National Oil Corp spokesman Mohamed El-Hariri said.
In Vienna, an Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs spokesman said that a 39-year-old Austrian working for an oilfield management company had gone missing after an attack in Libya. He declined to give the name of the missing Austrian or his company.
Both the Czech and Austrian governments have assembled crisis groups to handle the situation. A Czech official is expected to travel to the region soon.
Western governments are backing UN negotiations to end the crisis in Libya, worried that the large North African state just across the Mediterranean from Europe is becoming a haven for Muslim militants.
Libyan militants claiming loyalty to Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria have been blamed for high-profile attacks this year involving foreigners, including an assault on a Tripoli hotel and the beheading of a group of Egyptian Christians.
Militants this month also stormed and damaged several Libyan oilfields around al-Ghani, forcing the government to declare force majeure, evacuate workers and shut down production on 11 oilfields in the central Sirte basin.
UN-backed talks to form a unity government and a lasting ceasefire in Libya are continuing in Morocco. However, both sides face internal splits over the negotiations and fighting between the two governments continues.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
RSS