Libya – Gunmen ‘Kill 11 Including Foreigner’ At Oilfield

Unknown gunmen have attacked a defunct Libyan oilfield leaving at least 11 dead, one of them a foreign national, the oilfield’s commander says. Three other foreigners are missing.

The gunmen, seized the remote al-Mabruk oilfield south of Sirte on Tuesday night.

The oilfield, part-owned by the French company Total, has not produced oil for more than a year.

In 2013, Total said they had withdrawn all their staff from the oilfield.

Abdelhakim Maazab, commander of a force guarding the oilfield, told the BBC that one man from sub-Saharan Africa, “Ghanian or Nigerian maybe”, was among the dead.

He said he believed three Filipinos had been kidnapped by the gunmen. They were earlier reported dead but their bodies were not recovered with the others who died.

Col Maazab said the gunmen were “Islamic State people”.

They were no longer in control of the oilfield, he said, but had left stealing vehicles and other items.

Last week IS said it had carried out an attack on the Corinthia hotel in Tripoli that killed nine people, including five foreigners.

In the past month there have been a number of attacks in western Libya that have been claimed by IS social media accounts.

It has not been clearly established whether these groups are IS fighters or people inspired by them.