Militants from Libya's Islamic State affiliate beheaded eight Libyan
guards in an attack on a central oil field last week during which the
extremists abducted nine foreigners.
In the Philippines,
authorities said Monday (local time) that four of their nationals were
among the nine abducted from the oil field. An Austrian, a Czech, a
Bangladeshi and a Ghana national were also taken while one hostage
remains unidentified.Friday's attack on the al-Ghani oil field near the town of Zalla, some 750 kilometers southeast of the capital, Tripoli, was part of a series of deadly assaults on Libya's oil lucrative infrastructure by the Islamic State group.
The attacks in recent weeks have forced Libya to declare 11 fields non-operational, including al-Ghani, and invoke a force majeure clause that exempts the state from contractual obligations.
"This is the lifeline of the Libyan people," he said Monday, adding the consequences of such a loss would be dire.
During the attack on al-Ghani, an employee watched the beheadings of the eight oil guards and subsequently died of a heart attack, al-Mesmari also said. He not elaborate on how the army knew about the beheadings but the force serving as oil guards is closely allied to the Libyan military, which answers to the eastern-based government, one of Libya's two rival governments.
In the Philippines, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said Manila was working with the employer of the nine, Austrian-owned VAOS Oil Service, the Libyan government and embassies of the other foreigners abducted.
The incident brings the total number of Filipinos missing in Libya to seven. Three others were snatched in another oil field on February 3 and their whereabouts also remain unknown.
Jose also appealed to around 4000 Filipinos still in Libya to get in touch with the Philippine embassy and avail of the government's mandatory repatriation program which covers the cost of travel back to the Philippines.
The Al-Ghani oil field had suspended operation for two weeks prior to the attack and most of the workers had left by the time the gunmen arrived there, he added.
On Sunday, Philippine diplomats met with 52 other Filipino employees of VAOS Oil at the company's headquarters in Tripoli. Jose said 36 of the 52 Filipinos have said they want to go home and more are expected to sign up for repatriation in the coming days.
The Philippines is among the world's top labor exporters with about a tenth of its 100 million people working abroad
Three years after Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown in an Arab Spring-inspired uprising, Libya is bitterly divided between two rival governments and a wide array of militias. The internationally recognised government and parliament were forced to relocate to the country's far east after Tripoli fell to Islamist-allied militias last summer.
Al-Mesmari, the Libyan army spokesman, said that following the attack on al-Ghani, fighter jets took off from the Ras Lanouf port on Libya central coastline and targeted the militants. Earlier, Tripoli-based militias said their own fighter jets tried to stop the attack on al-Ghani but failed.
The Libyan turmoil has provided fertile ground for militants allied with the Islamic State group, which is fighting in Iraq and Syria to expand its self-styled caliphate. The Libyan Isis affiliate now controls the eastern city of Darna and also Sirte, and has carried out several deadly suicide bombings across the country.
In January, militants from Libya's Isis affiliate stormed a luxury hotel in Tripoli, and in February, they released a video showing the beheading of 21 captured Egyptian Christians. The Egyptian military launched airstrikes on Darna in retaliation for the horrific slayings.
Also Monday, General Khalifa Hifter, a veteran general leading a campaign against Islamist militias, was sworn in as Libya's army chief in a ceremony before lawmakers at the parliament based in the eastern city of Tobruk.
The internationally-recognised parliament appointed Hifter to the post last week. He was a former army chief under Gadhafi who decades ago defected to the opposition and returned to Libya after the 2011 uprising.
More horrific photos from ISIS run state. Three men, accused of homosexuality and blasphemy, were publicly beheaded by a sword-wielding ISIS executioner. The photos of the barbaric execution was shared online today. Two of the men were accused of being homosexuals and the third one accused of Blasphemy. They were blindfolded and taken to a traffic roundabout with a crowd looking on.
An elderly man used a microphone to read out their crimes before a masked man beheaded them.
Photographs of the barbaric murders show the blindfolded men kneeling in the centre of what appears to be a traffic roundabout with a crowd of people looking on as a masked executioner stands by with a long, rusty blade.
After an elderly man uses a microphone to read to the crowd from his notes, the executioner then steps forward with the blade poised above the men's heads in the unnamed city in northern Iraq.
Accompanying captions said the trio were then beheaded - two for engaging in homosexual acts and the third for alleged blasphemy - but there were no images released of the actual beheading.
The jihadist group, which controls swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has carried out hundreds of barbaric executions as it has imposed its brutal version of Islamic law, many of which are photographed or videotaped.
Many young men have also been thrown from the roofs of buildings throughout Isis-controlled areas after being accused of engaging in homosexual acts.
The stomach-churning photographs usually show a blindfolded victim being dragged to the top of a building by black-masked militants.
As crowds gather at street level the men are thrown to their death, while jihadis and members of the public use mobile phones to film the gruesome murders.
But retaking Nineveh and its capital Mosul poses a major challenge for Baghdad's forces, as the militants have had more than nine months to dig in.
Iraqi forces launched a huge operation last week aimed at retaking the city of Tikrit that, if successful, would serve as a stepping stone towards Mosul.
Images of the group's latest execution come amid claims a former member of Isis claimed he witnessed the British graduate dubbed Jihadi John behead a Japanese hostage.
The
man, named only as Saleh, said the masked militant who appears in
several beheading videos was a senior figure in the extremist
organisation responsible for murdering foreign captives.Jihadi John, who was recently unmasked as 26-year-old Londoner Mohammed Emwazi, was last seen in a video posted online which appeared to show Japanese hostage Kenji Goto lying dead.
Saleh, who worked as a translator, also revealed that Isis routinely subjected hostages to mock executions so that when their beheading did finally come they were not expecting to die, according to Sky News.
