Niger on Wednesday called for Western intervention to eradicate a growing threat from Islamist fighters who have established bases in southern Libya since the 2011 overthrow of Moamar Gadhafi.

"The powers who intervened to overthrow Colonel Gadhafi -- after which Libya became the main sanctuary for terrorists -- need to provide an after-sales service," Niger's Interior Minister Massoudou Hassoumi told Radio France International.

Libya has completely destroyed the chemical arsenal it inherited from the ousted dictatorship of Moammar Gadhafi, Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdelaziz announced on Tuesday.

"Libya has become totally free of usable chemical weapons that might present a potential threat to the security of local communities, the environment and neighboring areas," the minister said.

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said Monday he had ordered the army to lift the blockade imposed by protesters on the main oil terminals in the east of the country.

Since last July, security guards at key oil terminals in eastern Libya -- many of them former rebels who helped overthrow strongman Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 -- have blockaded exports, hitting government revenues.

Libyans will go to the polls on February 20 to choose a commission to draft a new constitution, the president of the General National Congress said Thursday.

Following the ouster of long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Libya held its first free vote ever in July 2012 to choose the GNC, the country's highest political authority.

Clashes in Libya's second city Benghazi killed at least one soldier after the son of the army's special forces commander there was kidnapped Thursday, a military source and witnesses said.

Medical sources said at least one member of the special forces was killed and two of his colleagues were wounded.

Libyan troops on Wednesday retook a southern air base captured by loyalists of the slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi who had occupied it for two weeks, a military official told Agence France Presse.

The army and former rebels succeeded in capturing the Tamenhant air base, in the suburbs of the main southern city of Sebha, military spokesman Colonel Ali al-Chikhi said.

Libya's interior minister escaped unscathed from an assassination attempt in Tripoli on Wednesday, the LANA news agency reported.

Seddik Abdelkarim, who is also deputy prime minister, was in his car when "unknown gunmen fired a barrage of bullets" at the vehicle, the agency said, adding that no one was killed or wounded in the attack.

Fresh clashes erupted Tuesday in the southern Libyan city of Sebha pitting supporters of slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi against government forces and former rebels, a military source said.

The latest fighting was sparked by the arrival of government reinforcements who aim to dislodge the Gadhafi supporters from several positions they occupy in and around the desert city, said Al-Ferjani Akila, of the Sebha Operations Center.

Libya's prime minister said Monday five Egyptian diplomats kidnapped in Tripoli and freed as part of an apparent prisoner swap will return to their homeland "in a few hours".

Kidnappers snatched four Egyptian diplomats in Tripoli on Saturday, the day after another member of the embassy in the city was taken.

Five Egyptian diplomats kidnapped in Tripoli following the arrest in Egypt of a former Libyan rebel commander were released Sunday as part of a swap, officials said.

The abduction of the five on Saturday and of another member of the Egyptian embassy's staff a day earlier came after Shaaban Hadeia, a prominent commander in the rebellion that ousted Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, was arrested in Alexandria.