Libyan air force attacks unruly militias in south - ministry

Libya is using its air force to try to end unrest in the remote south that it blames on forces loyal to ousted ruler Muammar Gaddafi, the Defence Ministry said on Saturday.      

Parliament earlier put the army on alert after gunmen stormed an air force base near the southern city of Sabha, the scene of days of clashes between rival armed groups.       

"A force was readied, then aircraft moved and took off and dealt with the targets," Defence Ministry spokesman Abdul-Raziq al-Shabahi told reporters in Tripoli.

This comes after a military official in Libya said three soldiers have been killed in clashes in the restive southern city of Sabha, a stronghold for former loyalists of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi.           

The official said four soldiers were wounded in the clashes that continued for the second day Saturday after an earlier truce failed. The clashes were sparked by revenge attacks between the African-origin Tabu tribe and the Arab-origin Awlad Soliman.           

The official said assailants attacked at least two military bases in the city. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to brief journalists.    
         
Also on Saturday, two Italian construction workers have been abducted in an Islamist stronghold in eastern Libya, a security source said.     

The men were kidnapped in Derna, east of Benghazi, where they had been staying in a cement factory, the security source said.        

"There was a group of Libyan construction workers waiting for them on the highway east of Derna to fix a hole in the road, but the Italians did not arrive," the source said. "We are trying to establish the identity of the kidnappers, to find out about their demands."          

Derna is a stronghold of radical Islamists in the east of Libya, an OPEC oil producer struggling with turmoil two-and-a-half years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.       

The government and its nascent army is struggling to control the militias, tribesmen and Islamists who helped topple Gaddafi but refuse to disarm and trust the political process to meet their demands.       

Benghazi, the main city in the east, has been rocked by a wave of assassinations of army and police officers as well as car bombs. Most Western nationals left the city after the U.S. ambassador was killed during an Islamist assault on the U.S. consulate there in September 2012.