Berber protesters storm Libya parliament

Members of the ethnic Berber minority forced their way into the Libyan parliament building in Tripoli on Tuesday, smashing windows and destroying furniture, in a demonstration to push for cultural rights, Reuters news agency quoted an assembly spokesman of saying. The protest occurred during a break in a regular session at the assembly, General National Congress spokesman Omar Hmaiden said. There were no immediate reports of casualties, but Hmaiden said furniture had been smashed and some documents belonging to assembly members were missing. Violence and lawlessness, much of it involving former rebel groups, has hobbled governance in the North African oil producer since the war that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Earlier on Tuesday, a colonel in the restive Libyan city of Benghazi escaped a bomb attack after discovering the device placed under his car outside his home. Colonel Jelal al-Arafi discovered the device and immediately ran away from the vehicle when the bomb exploded, security spokesman Colonel Abdallah al-Zayedi said. "He was injured in the foot and underwent surgery at a hospital in Benghazi," Zayedi said, adding that this was an "attempted assassination." In recent days, journalists have also come under attack. On Monday, Khadija al-Ammami, director of Libya Al-Ahrar television's Benghazi office, was shot at several times when she was in her car on the way to her office but miraculously survived, a colleague said. She later received telephone threats that she would be killed next time. That attack came three days after a Libyan doctor who hosted a television programme on human development was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Benghazi, Libya's second city. Azzedine Koussad, a presenter for Libya Al-Hurra television, was hit by several rounds as he sat in his parked car. Libya's new authorities have struggled to re-establish order and form a professional army since Gaddafi’s overthrow and their efforts to woo militiamen to join the security forces have been scorned. Additional source: AFP