Ismail Zitouny / Reuters, file

Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said armed groups demanding his resignation had a right to express their views as they saw fit.

TRIPOLI -- Libya's political crisis deepened on Wednesday as armed groups surrounding two ministries in the capital said they had formed an alliance to present an expanded list of six demands that included the resignation of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan.

Zeidan, for his part, promised the government would stick to plans to bar anyone who held a senior position under late dictator Moammar Gadhafi and said some ministers would have to be replaced under legislation passed on Sunday.

In fact, the prime minister himself could be unseated as he served as a diplomat under Gadhafi before defecting to the exiled opposition in 1980.

The armed groups initially demanded that parliament pass the "political isolation law" banning senior Gadhafi officials from office, and members had hoped the vote would be enough to dislodge the gunmen from their positions at the government ministries.

Instead, the groups have settled in and expanded their list of demands, which they presented to Reuters on a printed notice late on Wednesday.

The additional demands included Zeidan's resignation, the freezing of a recently released state budget and the right to form a committee to take charge of the Foreign Ministry.

But Zeidan defended the armed groups, saying they had a right to express their views as they saw fit.

"We don't have militias in Libya, we have revolutionaries," he told a news conference.

Slideshow: Moammar Gadhafi through the years

Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images

A look at the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader

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The prime minister also denied that parliament had bowed to their pressure, insisting the new law was necessary to protect the ideals of the revolution, adding he hoped the world would appreciate Libya's exceptional circumstances.

"With any law passed, there are some positive and some negative aspects, and we need to accept the negatives," he said.

In a separate development, a rival coalition that said it supported the government warned those stationed at the ministries it was prepared to use force to dislodge them.

"If you do not respond to our demands, we will form a common national force from all the cities of Libya to handle this situation," the group said on Wednesday.

Its members included federalists in eastern Cyrenaica and leaders of former rebel groups in a number of towns including Benghazi in the east.

Related: 

• Diplomats criticize Benghazi response
• Full Libya coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Thu May 9, 2013 4:46 AM EDT

Sabri Elmhedwi / EPA

Libyans hold placards and banners during a demonstration in Libya's landmark Martyrs Square in Tripoli, Sunday.

TRIPOLI -- Libya's defense minister resigned on Tuesday in protest at a siege by gunmen of two government ministries that he denounced as an assault on democracy almost two years after the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

He was the first cabinet minister to quit in a crisis over the siege, which armed groups refused to lift even after parliament bowed on Sunday to their main demand by banning from government posts any senior official who served under Gadhafi.

"I will never be able to accept that politics (can) be practiced by the power of weapons ... This is an assault against the democracy I have sworn to protect," Defense Minister Mohammed al-Bargathi said.

Members of parliament in Libya, plagued by armed disorder since Gadhafi's demise, say the new legislation could be applied to around 40 of 200 deputies and could also unseat the prime minister, who some protesters demand should quit immediately.

Slideshow: Conflict in Libya

Goran Tomasevic / REUTERS

An uprising in Libya ousts dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

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Diplomats fear that parliament, in agreeing to vote under duress, could effectively embolden the powerful armed groups that fought to topple Gadhafi and are now more visible in Libya than state security forces.

There is also concern that the sweeping terms of the vote could cripple the government's ability to function.

On Monday, a spokesman for parliament conceded that the siege of the ministries was out of the government's hands and that it would be up to the militiamen now to leave as promised.

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TRIPOLI — Libya's parliament voted on Sunday to ban anyone who held a senior position during Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule from government, a move which could unseat the prime minister and other top officials regardless of their part in toppling the dictator.

Politicians debated the draft law for months, but the issue came to a head this week when heavily armed groups took control of two ministries and stormed other institutions including the state broadcaster.

The decision to hold the vote under duress could embolden the armed groups to use force again to assert their will over parliament.

Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, a diplomat under Gaddafi who defected to the exiled opposition in 1980, could be among those barred from office, although this remained unclear and a parliament spokesman said it would be decided by a committee charged with implementing the law.

"Being unjust to a few is better than defeating the whole objective of the law," said one of the hundreds who filled Tripoli's main square to celebrating the passage of the law, many of them shooting guns into the air.

Nearly two years after Gaddafi was overthrown, the gunmen who fought to end his 42-year dictatorship are refusing to lay down their arms and go back to civilian life - militiamen are more visible than Libyan state forces in the capital.

The cabinet and Libya's official armed forces are so weak that swathes of the oil-producing desert country remain outside central government control.

A spokesman for parliament admitted it was unclear whether the vote would be enough to dislodge the gunmen from their positions outside the government buildings.

"We hope the siege of the ministries will stop now, but it is not in our hands," General National Congress (GNC) spokesman Omar Hmaiden told a news conference after the vote.

More than a dozen vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft weapons and machine guns remained parked outside the Justice Ministry and the Foreign Ministry has been similarly encircled for a week.

One of the men stationed by a machine gun in front of the Justice Ministry, said the group came from different areas close to the capital Tripoli and ahead of the vote vowed they would stay until the prime minister had been forced from office.

"We have been asking them to deal with Gaddafi's friends for a year," he said.

Although the law passed with an overwhelming majority of 164 votes in favor and just four against, many congress members were upset.

"It's a very unfair and extreme law, but we need to put national interests first in order to solve the crisis," said Tawfiq Breik, spokesman for the liberal National Forces Alliance (NFA) bloc, Libya's largest parliamentary coalition.

Diplomats in Tripoli complained that holding the vote under duress had undermined its legitimacy, while a human rights group called on parliament to reject the draft.

"The GNC should not allow itself to be railroaded into making very bad laws because groups of armed men are demanding it," said Sarah Leah Whitson, a Human Rights Watch director in the region, in a statement.

"Libya's long-term prospects for peace and security will be seriously diminished if the congress agrees to nod through this law."

Much will depend on how high up in Gaddafi's administration an official has to have been in order to be excluded from politics, one analyst said.

"If the bar is too low, the law could result in most government administrations being gutted, without having sufficient staff or institutional memory to ensure their proper functioning," said Geoff Porter of North Africa Risk Consulting.

"However, if the bar is too high then we are likely to see repeats of the blockades in front of government ministries that we saw this week."

Congress members say the law could be applied to around 40 others in the 200-member parliament, including the president of the assembly Mohammed Magarief who became an exiled leader of Libya's oldest opposition movement in the 1980s after serving as an ambassador under Gaddafi.

The law does not make provisions for those, like him, who spent decades in exile and were instrumental in toppling Gaddafi.

The law prohibits former officials from holding any position in government or even belonging to a political party. It will also ban them from leadership roles in the country's state firms, like the National Oil Corporation, its universities and judicial bodies.

A car bomb went off outside the French Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, on Tuesday, a Libyan Foreign Ministry official said.

The official said two guards were hurt, but no one had died.

Television images showed extensive damage to buildings in the area.

"I think there were two blasts, the first was very loud and then there was a smaller one," a  witness told Reuters. "There was some black smoke at first, and then it turned white."

Ismail Zitouny / Reuters

People stand among debris outside the French Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, after a car bomb exploded Tuesday.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemned what he called a heinous attack and said everything would be done to find the perpetrators, the news service reported.

"I send my solidarity and deepest sympathy to the two injured French guards and my wishes for their recovery," he said in a statement. 

In September, an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Suspect arrested in connection with Benghazi attack

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 23, 2013 3:40 AM EDT

ROME -- The Italian coast guard rescued almost 500 migrants crammed into five small inflatable boats off the Sicilian coast in the Mediterranean Sea after receiving distress calls overnight, the coast guard said on Thursday.

Coast guard spokesman Marco di Milla said the migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, included some pregnant women and several people in need of hospital treatment.

"They were in inflatable boats of a maximum of 10 meters [33 feet] long, which can carry about 10 people safely. Instead, these boats were carrying up to 100 people," di Milla told Reuters. He said the boats had likely started their journey in the North African state of Libya.

Most of the migrants were taken to Lampedusa, a tiny island south of Sicily that receives thousands of immigrants each year.

Improved spring weather conditions have increased the numbers trying to make the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean, but thousands have died due to shipwrecks, harsh conditions and a lack of food and water.

An estimated 1,500 migrants lost their lives in the Mediterranean in 2011, many of them trying to escape the turmoil caused by the Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa, according to Human Rights Watch. It estimated the death toll in 2012 at more than 300.

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PhotoBlog: Libyans put aside woes to celebrate

TRIPOLI, Libya -- Fifty-one people have died since Saturday after drinking homemade alcohol, most of them in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and more than 300 others were suffering from alcohol poisoning, the health ministry said on Monday.

The consumption and sale of alcohol is banned in the North African country, even though it is available on the black market.

In a statement on its website, the ministry said 38 people had died in Tripoli and another 13 had died while on their way to Tunisia for treatment.

"There have been 378 cases of alcohol poisoning so far," the ministry said, adding the illegal concoction was believed to have contained methanol. The deaths were among that figure.

It gave no further details about the alcohol or its source.

With its long, porous borders, Libya has seen a significant increase in drug and alcohol trafficking since the 2011 war that ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

KCNA via Reuters

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects a Korean People's Army Unit in this undated picture released by the official KCNA news agency on Thursday.

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea has bolstered its defenses against a "hostile" United States with its third nuclear test, it said on Thursday, noting that countries that had bowed to U.S. pressure to abandon their nuclear plans had suffered "tragic consequences."

Pyongyang carried out its largest nuclear test to date last week, in defiance of U.N. resolutions, prompting warnings of tougher sanctions for the isolated and impoverished state and its young ruler, Kim Jong Un.

Libya abandoned its nuclear program in 2003 in a bid to mend relations with the United States and later saw leader Moammar Gadhafi overthrown in an uprising that was eventually supported militarily by Washington.

In apparent reference to Libya, North Korea said it never backed down.

"The tragic consequences in those countries which abandoned halfway their nuclear programs... clearly prove that the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) was very far-sighted and just when it made the (nuclear) option," North Korea's KCNA news agency said.

Kim staged the latest test in response to tighter U.N. sanctions imposed in January after the country launched a long-range rocket last year in a move that critics said was designed to prove technology for an intercontinental ballistic missile.

North Korea has recently stepped up its rhetoric against South Korea, threatening to destroy its rich, democratic neighbor.

Most military assessments suggest that North Korea would lose any war against the U.S.-backed South and that its leaders would not risk a major conflict.

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PhotoBlog: Kim Jong Un inspects army unit

Mahmud Turkia / AFP - Getty Images

Thousands of Libyans celebrate the second anniversary of the Libyan uprising at Martyrs' Square in Tripoli on Feb. 17, 2013.

Reuters reports — Thousands took to the streets on Sunday to celebrate two years since the start of Libya's revolution and a national political leader promised to end the sense of neglect experienced by Benghazi, the country's second city.

Mohammad Hannon / AP

Libyans release lanterns into the air at Nasr Square during the second anniversary of the uprising that toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in Benghazi on Feb 17.

One thousand kilometers east of the capital Tripoli, Benghazi was the cradle of the revolt that ousted dictator Moammar Gadhafi, but many citizens feel that they are yet to see the fruits of their military struggle.

"I'm not here to celebrate; a revolution should be celebrated once its goals are fulfilled. In Benghazi we keep bringing up demands and nothing happens," Mohammed al-Shokri, 26, said. Read the full story.

Slideshow: Conflict in Libya

Goran Tomasevic / REUTERS

An uprising in Libya ousts dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Launch slideshow

This story was originally published on Sun Feb 17, 2013 7:51 PM EST

Four foreigners have been arrested in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on suspicion of being Christian missionaries and printing books about Christianity, a security official said on Saturday.

"They were arrested on Tuesday at a publishing house where they were printing thousands of books that called for conversion to Christianity," security official Hussein Bin Hmeid said.

"Proselytizing is forbidden in Libya. We are a 100 percent Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security."

Hmeid said the government-affiliated security apparatus called the Preventative Security, for which he is a spokesman, had arrested an Egyptian, a South African, a Korean and a Swede who was travelling on a U.S. passport.

"We are still holding interrogations and will hand them over to the Libyan intelligence authorities in a couple of days," Hmeid said, without giving further details.

The Preventative Security apparatus is a parallel security body created during the 2011 war that ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi and made up of several rebel brigades that fought in the conflict.

Libya's central government has yet to impose its authority on a myriad of armed groups that have yet to lay down their arms, and with skeletal national security forces, often relies on them for security.

Reporting by Hadeel Al-Shalchi; Editing by Alison Williams

A man linked by officials to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi has been conditionally released by a Tunisian judge, an adviser to Tunisia's justice minister said Tuesday.

The adviser, Kamel Ben-Jaballah, told NBC News that Ali Harzi, 26, was released from custody by the investigative judge yesterday.

Harzi, however, remains "technically under investigation" and his release is "temporary," Ben-Jaballah said, adding that Harzi is subject to a travel ban that forbids him from leaving greater Tunis.

New timeline of Benghazi attack reveals quick response

Harzi's lawyer said that his client, who is Tunisian, was released for lack of evidence.

Harzi's release appears to be a setback to the investigation of the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, information management officer Sean Smith and security personnel Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

The investigation in Libya has been stalled due to the weak central government in the face of the powerful militias, some of which may have been involved in the attack.

Harzi was one of very few people in custody in relation to the attack. U.S. officials told NBC News in December that Egypt had also arrested a member of the group Islamic Jihad for possible links to the attack, but in general they lamented a lack of cooperation from local governments in their investigation and said most suspects remained free.

The attack became a political bombshell in the United States, with critics of President Barack Obama's administration saying that more should have been done to protect the embassy, particularly after officials had requested extra security.

A scathing report cited "systemic failures" within the State Department and was at least partially responsible for the resignation of the assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Three other officials were relieved from duty after the report was released.

Harzi's lawyer, Anwar Oued-Ali, said the presiding judge had "conditionally freed" his client Monday night and that he must remain nearby in case he is needed. The lawyer described the release as "correcting an irregular situation" because, he claimed, authorities never had any real evidence.

Benghazi coverage from NBC News

Harzi was originally detained in Turkey, and in October was extradited to Tunisia, where authorities had said he was "strongly suspected" of being involved in the attack. His lawyer said he was officially charged with "membership of a terrorist organization," a charge punishable by six to 12 years in prison.

In December, FBI officials questioned Harzi for three hours in the presence of a Tunisian judge.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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