Four killed as car bomb targets funeral in Libya’s Benghazi

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Damaged cars are seen at the site where a car bomb hit a funeral of a former senior military commander at Huwari cemetery in Benghazi, Libya July 11, 2019. (Reuters)
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People gather at the site where a car bomb hit a funeral of a former senior military commander at Huwari cemetery in Benghazi, Libya July 11, 2019. (Reuters)
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The wreckage of a car is seen at the site where a car bomb hit a funeral of a former senior military commander at Huwari cemetery in Benghazi, Libya July 11, 2019. (Reuters)
Updated 11 July 2019
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Four killed as car bomb targets funeral in Libya’s Benghazi

  • The funeral at Benghazi's Huwari cemetery was for Khalifa Mismari, the assistant commander of Libya's special forces under former leader Muammar Gaddafi
  • The special forces have become a key unit aligned with Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who controls eastern Libya

BENGHAZI: At least four people were killed and 33 wounded when a car bomb hit a funeral of a former senior military commander in the east Libyan city of Benghazi, a spokesman for the eastern administration’s interior ministry said.
The funeral at Benghazi's Huwari cemetery was for Khalifa Mismari, the assistant commander of Libya's special forces under former leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was toppled in 2011, a military source said.
A witness saw two burned out cars at the scene of the blast.
According to the military source, the current head of the special forces, Wanis Bukhamada, was attending the funeral but was unharmed.

Libyan National Army's spokesman General Ahmad Al-Mesmari accused the Prime Minister of Libya's Tripoli-based government Fayez Al-Sarraj of funding terrorism in Benghazi and said that he has become the political face of terrorist groups.

At a press conference that took place on Thursday, Al-Mesmari said the Libyan National Army does not differentiate between extremist organizations in Tripoli, Al-Qaeda, and Daesh, and that all Libyans should support the LNA's armed forces in every way.  
Since 2014, Libya has been divided between rival political and military factions based in Tripoli and the eastern part of the country.
The special forces have become a key unit aligned with Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who controls eastern Libya.
Since early April, Haftar has been waging an offensive to try to take the capital Tripoli, in the west of the country, though his campaign has stalled.


Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

Updated 24 January 2026
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Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.

Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.