4 Libyan soldiers killed in Benghazi attacks

Four Libyan soldiers were shot dead on Sunday in separate incidents in the restive eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of the 2011 uprising, security and medical sources said. "Unidentified gunmen killed four soldiers and wounded another in Benghazi, while another was wounded in an assassination attempt," a security official told AFP. spokeswoman at the city's Al-Jala hospital, Fadia al-Barghathi, confirmed the soldiers' deaths. The security official said they had been killed in separate attacks. An officer died in a hail of bullets in the city centre district of Al-Hadaek. His son, who was with him in his car at the time, escaped unscathed. The same source said three more soldiers were killed and one wounded in two attacks in the Assalem neighbourhood. It was in Benghazi that the 2011 uprising which ended dictator Moamer Kadhafi's four-decade rule began. The city has since been plagued by violence that has killed dozens of members of the security forces, judges and foreigners. A suicide bombing targeting a security post near the city in December killed 13, and on May 2 five soldiers and a policeman died in clashes between jihadists and army special forces. Libya's central authorities have struggled to assert their control over the vast, mostly desert country, which is effectively ruled by a patchwork of local militias and awash with heavy weapons. In March, the authorities acknowledged for the first time the existence of "terrorist groups" in Libya, particularly in Benghazi and in Derna, an eastern city with a history of Islamist militancy.