Libyan Prime Minister Zeidan kidnapped by gunmen

TRIPOLI - Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has been taken by force from a hotel in Tripoli by a group of former rebels, the government said in a statement on Thursday. "The head of the government Ali Zeidan was taken at dawn this morning by gunmen to an unknown place for unknown reasons," the government said. Guards at the Corinthia Hotel said gunmen had taken Zeidan from the hotel but there were no shots fired or clashes during the incident.

One guard described it as an "arrest" while another told Reuters the men were militants.
Al-Arabiya television channel quoted Libya's justice minister as saying that Zeidan had been "kidnapped" and showed what it said were video stills of Zeidan frowning and wearing a grey shirt undone at the collar surrounded by several men in civilian clothes pressing closely around him. A group of former Libyan rebels said it seized Zeidan because of his government's role in the US capture of a top al-Qaida suspect in the Libyan capital last week, in a raid that angered Islamist militant groups, including one blamed for the 2012 attack on the US consulate, in Benghazi. "His arrest comes after the statement by John Kerry about the capture of Abu Anas al-Liby, after he said the Libyan government was aware of the operation," a spokesman for the group, known as the Operations Room of Libya's Revolutionaries, said referring to the US Secretary of State.
The US State Department was looking into the reports of the incident and was "in close touch with senior US and Libyan officials on the ground," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Two years after a revolution toppled Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's fragile central government has been struggling to contain rival tribal militias and Islamist militants who control parts of the country.