By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 3 July 2015:
Derna was hit shortly late this afternoon with three suicide bombings in which as many as eight . . .[restrict]people, including children, were killed. Fifteen were injured, two of them women. Among the dead is the former Derna council leader Hussam Al-Nawaisri.
According to a statement from the Shoura Council of Mujahedeen in Derna (SCMD), which controls the town after it drove out Islamic State (IS) forces last month, the first suicide bomber targeted a SCMD-controlled checkpoint in the town’s East Shiha area. A checkpoint guard, named as Talal Al-Gadi, was checking the car and was killed when the driver detonated the bomb in the vehicle.
SCMF forces opened fire on the second vehicle, suspecting it of being a suicide bomb. The driver blew himself up. No one else was killed or injured.
The third was the most deadly, the statement read. The suicide bomber headed downtown during the rush hour when he was confronted, the statement said, by Nuweiseri and another man, Hussam Al-Shami, both of whom were described as Mujahideen. The bomber then blew himself up killing them and three other people – two children named as Libiya Ehnaish Al-Gabsi (aged 4) and Ahmed Al Hassi, and an older man, believed to be a close relation of the girl, Ehnaish Al-Gabsi. Ten bystanders were wounded.
Other reports also name three more people killed in the third explosion: Abdullah Hamad Al-Shaari, Al-Sharif Benali, and Ahmed Al-Hassi’s brother, Salem. These have not been confirmed.
Islamic State (IS) forces are being blamed for the attack.
Driven out last month by the Shoura Council of Mujahedeen in Derna (SCMD), it has vowed to bomb the town if it is not returned to its control.
Earlier today it rocketed a checkpoint controlled by the SCMD in the Fataiah area.
Nuwaisiri’s brother, Colonel Adnan Nuwaiseri, was assassinated in Derna in Ramadan 2013.
The SCMD has meanwhile issued a statement denying any links other organisations “within or outside of the country”. The statement is seen as an attempt to refute allegations that it is linked to Al-Qaeda.
