The central government's urgency about holding local elections reflects its growing reliance on disparate rural authorities to maintain a fragile peace.
A small explosion damaged the front of the Egyptian Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Aug. 17, witnesses said, Reuters reported. No injuries have been reported.
Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Awad al-Barassi resigned Aug. 4 in response to failed government policies and a recent string of assassinations, AP reported.
Libyan army officer Col. Noueisri al-Adnen was shot and killed in the eastern Libyan town of Derna on July 31, a security official said Aug. 1, AFP reported.
Protesters in Benghazi attacked offices of Libya's Muslim Brotherhood on July 27 during demonstrations against a wave of recent assassinations in the city, AFP reported.
A rocket-propelled grenade hit a building next to a luxury hotel in the Libyan capital where Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidan has an apartment, Reuters reported July 24, citing comments from a military official.
Following the ouster and death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in October 2011, Tripoli has struggled to maintain its hold over LIbya's various regional authority centers, especially in the eastern city of Benghazi. The ongoing competition for power between the central government and regional power centers, the risk posed by persistent elements of pro-Gadhafi loyalists and the growing presence of radical Islamic jihadists taking advantage of an increasingly distracted central authority will shape Libya's future.
