Libya: Blast near funeral for policeman wounds 2

         
A suicide car bomber blew himself up outside a cemetery in the troubled Libyan city of Benghazi Sunday as mourners left a funeral for a senior police officer who was assassinated, security officials said.
     
At least two people were wounded in the blast outside the al-Hawari cemetery, the officials said. The mourners were part of a crowd that had gathered for the burial ceremony for Col. Kamal Bezazah, the police official who died Sunday from wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his car a day earlier.
     
Sunday's suicide bombing appeared to be targeting the mourners, the officials said.
     
Bezazah, who in addition to his police work also served a preacher at a local mosque and was a follower of the ultraconservative Salafi brand of Islam, died earlier Sunday at a Benghazi hospital, the officials said.
     
Bezazah had spoken out against the wave of assassinations and bombings in Benghazi that have targeted policemen and army officers in recent months. On Thursday alone, three military personnel were killed in Benghazi, along with an American school teacher in the city was shot dead while jogging.
     
Benghazi, the birthplace of the 2011 uprising that toppled the regime of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, is a stronghold of armed militias that operate largely outside of state control. Most of the militiamen fought against Gadhafi's forces in the civil war that ended with the dictator's death in October 2011.
     
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to brief the media.


AP