TRIPOLI, Libya, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Libyan Interior Minister Sadiq Aldulkarim survived an assassination attempt in Tripoli Wednesday when his limousine was ambushed by gunmen who made him the latest target in a chaotic power struggle with control of the country's oil the big prize.
Abdulkarim, who is also deputy prime minister, apparently was unhurt by the gunfire that broke out as he drove to Parliament. Other senior figures in the government and security forces have not been so lucky.
On Jan. 19, the army chief of staff, Gen. Mohamed Karah, died of a gunshot wound to the head he suffered during a security operation against armed gangs south of the capital.
A week earlier, Deputy Industry Minister Hassan al-Droui was shot dead in the coastal city of Sirte, east of the capital by unidentified assassins.
There's been no official compilation of the victims of these assassinations, many of them attributed to diehard supporters of Moammar Gadhafi, the longtime dictator overthrown and killed by a howling mob at the conclusion of an eight-month uprising in 2011. But most estimates put the toll at well over 100.
Most of the victims were ex-officers in Gadhafi's military or security services who either joined the rebels after the NATO-backed uprising or who went into retirement after the conflict.
Few, if any, suspects have been apprehended for the killings, which are most concentrated in the eastern city of Benghazi, an Islamist stronghold against Gadhafi and a hotbed of secession from rule by Tripoli in the west.
The Inkerman Group, a British security consultancy, counted 81 killed in the east, particularly Benghazi and Derna, by October.
Security sources and diplomats warn the violence is escalating.
Libyan security officials and analysts suspect Islamist gunmen, possibly with links to powerful militias that have dominated the North African country since Gadhafi's downfall, are responsible for most of the killings, some simply to settle old scores with a hated regime.
"There are 100 and some people who've been assassinated, and when you look at the names, many were security and military officials who in the 1990s took part in the crackdown on Islamist rebels," observed Hashem Bisher, a former militia chieftain in Tripoli.
"It's clear that someone's got a list, and the security officials who were instrumental in the revolution are being targeted," one Western diplomat noted.
Some of the killings clearly involve the deep-rooted tribal and political rivalry between the oil-rich east and west, the old provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and with the southern Fezzan region in the Sahara Desert.
The easterners are demanding a greater share of Libya's oil wealth and a return to self-rule under an administrative system established during the 1950s that divided the country into three states.
The eastern separatists have blockaded key oil export terminals at Ras Lanuf, Es Sider and Zueitina since August, effectively cutting off Libya's economic lifeline and adding to the instability.
Ordinary Libyans, who seek stability after the terrors of the Gadhafi era, the bloodletting of the uprising and the turmoil that followed, have staged street protests demanding an end to the murder spree.
But they made little headway. On Nov. 15, armed groups from the city of Misratah fired on protesters in the street of Tripoli demanding the militia leave the capital, killing 43 and wounding 560.
The assassinations have gone on, particularly in Benghazi, the crucible of the uprising, which has become Libya's murder capital.
The most notorious assassination there was the Sept. 11, 2012, killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Al-Qaida remains strong in Libya and has established bases in the southern desert, from where attacks are planned or launched against targets across North Africa.
The January 2013 seizure of the In Aminas gas complex in Algeria by a jihadist group in which 39 foreign technicians were slain was launched from southern Libya.
Prime Minister Ali Zeidan, who was kidnapped by one militia for several hours in October, has sought to integrate many of the marauding militiamen into the national security forces in a bid to curtail the armed groups.
But the internal affairs committee of the 200-seat General National Congress, Libya's attempt at a parliament, reported this month that only 29.6 percent of the estimated 170,000 militiamen who fought Gadhafi have been recruited.
The others refuse to surrender their weapons.
