Jihadist gunmen stormed police headquarters in Libya's second city Benghazi before dawn today, sparking fighting that killed at least nine soldiers and police, government and medical sources said.
"Armed brigades of Ansar al-Sharia and other criminal groups attacked the complex with both light and heavy weaponry," a government statement said.
The jihadist group Ansar al-Sharia was placed on the US terror list in January.
It said nine special forces members were killed and that other soldiers and policemen were wounded.
Some attackers were killed or arrested, the statement said without elaborating.
Special forces intervened to try to evict the gunmen, triggering fighting elsewhere in the eastern city that also wounded 24 members of the security forces, the medical sources said.
An army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that four soldiers were missing.
The officer said gunmen attacked the headquarters early today. Blasts and gunfire rocked the Mediterranean city for two hours from 0100 GMT, witnesses said.
The officer told AFP that four of the soldiers killed died as they were heading back to barracks after the fighting had subsided.
He said "tension" was running high among army units in Benghazi.
Another security source said earlier the gunmen had been trying to seize a vehicle packed with weapons and ammunition that the police had taken from them.
Today's violence comes just days after a car bomb targeted a special forces barracks in Benghazi, killing two soldiers and wounding three.
Benghazi was the cradle of the 2011 uprising that ended Moammer Gaddafi's four-decade rule and has since been plagued by violence that has killed dozens of members of the security forces, judges and foreigners.
The government has been struggling to consolidate control in the vast and mostly desert country, which is effectively ruled by a patchwork of local militias and awash with heavy weapons looted from Kadhafi's arsenals.
The lawlessness has also extended to the capital.
On Tuesday, gunmen stormed the parliament building in Tripoli, forcing lawmakers to postpone a vote for a new prime minister to replace Abdullah al-Thani.
