Two days ago, Libya’s parliamentary speaker and head of the General National Congress, GNC, Mohamed Magharief was targeted in what is being described as an assassination attempt on his life during a visit to the country's southern city of Sebha.

Speaking during an interview on Al-Wataniya TV, Mr Magharief said that the hotel in which he was staying with his delegation during his visit to Sebha came under attack and his personal security exchanged fire with the attackers over a period of three hours.

Magharief’s spokesman, Ramsy Burwein, has been quoted saying that Mr Magharief had escaped injury but that three of his guards in an exchange that lasted about three hours.

Investigation procedure are still taking place but no results have as yet emerged as to whether Magharief was the specific target of the attack in the Mediterranean city that on December 16 was declared a closed military zone after talks on the town's security situation between the local council and government officials, including the head of the GNC himself.

The town has recently witnessed a number of clashes between rival tribes that resulted in a number of victims from both sides.

It also comes at a time when the security situation in some areas of the country is still unstable, particularly in the eastern city of Benghazi where a security official from the dictatorial Gaddafi era, Nasser al-Magrabi was found shot dead on his farm on Friday.

Another corpse of another former Gaddafi security official, not named, was found in another farm in the Sidi Faraj area, according to reports, and investigations are still underway.

Meanwhile, the whereabouts of the head of Benghazi’s criminal investigations department, Abdelsalam al-Mahdawi, who was kidnapped at gunpoint on Wednesday are still unknown.