Apparent suicide attack in western town of Zliten puts question mark over UK plan to deploy troops to the country imminently

Dozens of people have been killed in an apparent suicide bombing at a police training centre in the western Libyan town of Zliten.

The bomb was on board a fuel tanker, which was driven into a large group of coastguard and police cadets gathering for their morning assembly, according to the Libya Herald.

A Zliten hospital spokesman told Associated Press that 60 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage, though Fozi Awnais, from the health ministry in Tripoli, later said 47 people had died and 118 more were injured.

Many of the injured, including those with shrapnel wounds, were taken to hospitals in nearby Misrata, as appeals were made for blood donations. The Facebook page of Misrata Central hospital named four of the victims and said it was treating 75 people injured in the blast.

It is one of the deadliest attacks since Islamist militants started gaining ground following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but it follows a series of devastating truck bombs set off in recent months by Islamic State in Misrata and against targets – military and civilian – further east.

Libya, which has been riven by instability since the overthrow of Gaddafi, has had rival administrations since August 2014, when an alliance of Islamist-backed militias overran the capital, Tripoli, forcing the government to take refuge in the east.



Thursday’s bombing has put a question mark over Britain’s commitment to deploy troops to the country in the coming weeks. In December, the Ministry of Defence announced that up to 1,000 soldiers would be sent early this year, working alongside Italian units to train security forces capable of confronting Isis.

The police academy at Zliten is one of the principal training centres where British troops would be expected to be based.



The deployment of British troops is seen by London as essential for the creation of security forces loyal to the UN-brokered government of national accord, announced on 17 December, which is intended to unify Libya’s warring factions. That government, led by a nine-strong presidency, has yet to set foot in Libya, with the country’s two existing rival governments, in Tripoli and Tobruk, both rejecting it.



Originally, security concerns about the safety of UK units in Libya had seen Britain’s military training programme shifted to Bassingbourn barracks in Cambridgeshire, but the scheme was closed down last year after several Libyan recruits were jailed for sexual offences.

Diplomats fear that without a united government, Libya’s militias will continue battling each other, allowing Isis to grow unhindered. This week the terror group launched attacks on Libya’s major eastern oil ports, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, setting storage tanks ablaze.