A Libyan minister has been shot dead in the first assassination of a member of the transitional government since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted from power in October 2011, according to reports.

The country's deputy industry minister, Hassan al-Droui, had been visiting to his hometown of Sirte, east of Tripoli, when he was shot multiple times, the BBC and the AFP news agency said, quoting security and hospital sources. His killers had not been identified and their motive was not known, reports said.

"Unidentified gunmen sprayed bullets on Droui in central Sirte," an official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

Droui had been a member of the National Transitional Council, the rebellion's political wing, and has held the office deputy minister for industry since the transitional government was set up.



Separately, a health official in Libya said 15 people were killed in clashes between two tribes in the country's south. The fighting is pitting the al-Tabw tribe against the Awlad Soliman tribe in the city of Sabha. A local leader said on Saturday that the fighting was sparked by the killing of a guard of the city's military leader, a member of the Awlad Soliman tribe.

For more than two years Libya has been a battleground for increasingly powerful militias, initially formed from the rebel brigades that fought against Gaddafi in the 2011 civil war.