Libya Officer Killed, Family Wounded when Car Explodes

A Libyan air force officer was killed Wednesday, and his wife and daughter seriously injured, when a bomb placed under his car exploded in the eastern city of Benghazi, officials said.

In a separate incident, a jihadist leader was killed in the eastern town of Derna, which has been a stronghold of radical Islamist groups since the 2011 uprising that ended Moammar Gadhafi's four-decade rule.

Benghazi was the cradle of the revolution that ousted Gadhafi, and has since been plagued by violence that has killed dozens of members of the security forces, judges and foreigners.

And Wednesday was the fourth day of a general strike to denounce the lack of security, as well as to call for the suspension of parliament and early elections.

Abdelhamid Tahar al-Imam, whose rank was not given, "was mortally wounded by the explosion," a source at the Benghazi Medical Center said.

"His wife and daughter, who were accompanying him, were gravely wounded and are in intensive care," he added.

A security source said the explosive device was underneath the car, but did not say if it detonated when Iman started the engine or as he was driving.

The explosion occurred in the center of the city, and angry residents blocked streets and set tires on fire in protest.

The jihadist leader, identified as Ali Ben Tahar, was gunned down by unknown assailants while driving in his car with his brother, who fled, according to the Al-Wasat website, which published a death certificate.

Other media outlets also reported the death, and purported pictures of Ben Tahar's bullet-riddled body appeared on social media.

Al-Wasat said that, on Friday, Ben Tahar took part in a heavily armed parade through Derna by a hardline Islamist group.

The group, calling itself the "Majlis Shura of Islamist Youth in Derna," said on Facebook that it intended to take over responsibility for security in the town and impose Islamic sharia law there.

Libya's weak central government has struggled to impose order over the plethora of rebel brigades that emerged during the 2011 uprising, including jihadist groups, who remain heavily armed and are often a law unto themselves.