Libya's new parliament held its first formal session Monday in the eastern city of Tobruk, as clashes rocked the capital Tripoli and divisions between Islamists and nationalists deepened.

Anti-Islamist MPs insisted on meeting in Tobruk, 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) from Tripoli, because of deadly clashes in the capital, some of the worst since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

An Italian engineer working for a construction company in the eastern Libyan town of Tobruk has gone missing, local media reported.

The engineer, missing since Saturday, was working for Italian construction company Enrico Ravanelli on a project in Tobruk's al-Hadaek neighborhood, news website al-Wasat reported.