Isil loyalists claim responsibility for car bombs in Libya, killing at least 40 people

Islamic State loyalists have claimed responsibility for three car bombs which rocked the Libyan mountain town of Qubbah on Friday, killing at least 40 people and derailing the divided country’s sputtering peace process.

Militants called the attack “revenge for the bloodshed of Muslims in the city of Derna”, signing their statement “Cyrenaica province”, one of the metastasising group’s Libyan branches.

The group said one of the bombers was from Saudi Arabia, the clearest indication yet that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) is able to deploy foreign militants inside Libya.

It said the attacks targeted forces of General Khalifa Haftar who launched a bloody campaign in May last year to rid Libya of Islamist militias who have thrived since an uprising more than three years ago.

Qubbah, the site of Friday’s attacks, has been dominated by tribal militia since November. They are broadly loyal to Gen Hiftar, a military commander backed by Libya’s beleaguered Tobruk government.

The town is his army’s closest stronghold to militant-held Derna. A number of leading Isil militants travelled to Derna last year, where they helped unite a panoply of once-divided extremist factions behind them.

“This is a message to anyone who is tempted to attack the soldiers of the caliphate (Isil) or any Muslim,” the statement said.

The early morning blasts took place 18 miles (30km) west of Derna, an Isil stronghold that was bombed by Egyptian planes on Monday, after the group beheaded at least 20 Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach.

The statement said two of its militants carried out suicide bombings in retaliation for air strikes on Derna. The attacks by the loyalists left scores of people injured, shredding the tarmac on roads close to the home of a member of Libya’s internationally recognised parliament.

Aguila Saleh, the assembly’s speaker, was not at home during the attacks. Medical officials said most of the casualties were civilians who had been queuing for petrol.

On Friday night, representatives of the parliament said a meeting was under way to decide whether to withdraw from a UN-backed peace process which has been described as Libya’s 'last chance’ to step back from the abyss.

In a statement, the UN mission to Libya called Friday’s attacks “cowardly” and urged all sides to “forge ahead with the search for a political solution”.

But media outlets loyal to Libya’s two rival parliaments swiftly blamed their opponents for the violence, underscoring the depth of divisions that must be addressed by any forthcoming peace talks.

Four years after mass protests hastened the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, the country is divided between an internationally-recognised parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk, and an Islamist-dominated assembly in the capital, Tripoli.

Neither side exercises effective control over large swathes of the vast oil-rich territory, and Islamic State loyalists have exploited the power vacuum which now engulfs the country.

Hundreds of thousands of Libyans have been displaced in the chaos, while diplomats have fled and embassies have been shuttered.

The militants joined other armed militias in unleashing what Human Rights Watch have described as a “reign of terror” across the city, involving apparent summary executions and public floggings.

But despite Isil’s claim of responsibility for Friday’s deadly attacks, the Tripoli government’s armed faction, Libya Dawn, claimed that Egypt had staged the attacks in an attempt to exaggerate the strength of Isil, and to justify a ground invasion.

Representatives of the Islamist-backed Tripoli government have repeatedly downplayed the threat posed by Islamist extremists. On Tuesday, Omar Al-Hassi, the prime minister, claimed that Isil’s official video showing the executions of the Christians on the beach was “fabricated”.