Libya’s Interior Minister Mohammed Khalifa al-Sheikh submitted his resignation on Sunday over differences with the prime minister, according to an official at the prime minister’s office said.
Lawlessness has blighted large areas of Libya following the 2011 war that toppled Muammar Gaddafi and the North African Arab country is still awash with weapons.
Al-Sharif al-Wafi, a member of the Libyan General National Congress, told reporters that al-Sheikh submitted his resignation to the cabinet and to parliament in protest against what he said was interference in his work by the government and parliament.
“He said that he didn’t have any understanding with the prime minister and that he didn’t have enough mandate to carry out his work,” Wafi said. “He also complained that some members of the congress interfered in his work.”
An official aide of Prime Minister Ali Zeidan confirmed that Sheikh submitted his resignation but declined to give any details.
Sheikh, a former Tripoli police colonel, took up his post in May after his predecessor Ashour Shuail resigned.
Libya has been gripped by violence since Gaddafi’s downfall. Militia groups have further destabilised the oil-producing country, including in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of the anti-Gaddafi uprising.
On Saturday, a bomb blast ripped through the garden wall of the Egyptian consulate in Benghazi, injuring a security guard who needed hospital treatment, witnesses said.
US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Benghazi last year after Islamist gunmen attacked the U.S. consulate during a protest by a mob angry over a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.
