Interior Minister Fawzi Abdelali resigned on Sunday after coming under fire for the performance of security forces during a surge of violence that has rocked Libya, an official from his office told Agence France Presse.

"He submitted his resignation to protest against congressmen criticizing the government and to defend the revolutionaries," the official said, referring to former rebels who now form part of Libya's security services.

National assembly members have called for the sacking of Libya's defense and interior ministers over the security situation in the country, a member told Agence France Presse.

"There have been demands for the dismissal of the defense and interior ministers but the assembly has called for them to be summoned first to hear them. This should happen later today or tomorrow," he said, asking not to be named.

Clashes erupted between rival tribes in the Libyan town of Zliten late Thursday killing two people, a local official said, in the latest tribal or ethnic violence since the ouster of Moamer Kadhafi's iron-fisted regime.

"Anti-aircraft guns, rocket propelled grenades and light weapons were used in the fighting," the official told Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity. "So far, we have a toll of two dead and several wounded."

More than 100 tanks have been seized from a militia loyal to Libya's ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi that posed as "revolutionaries" in the region of Tarhuna, the interior ministry said on Thursday.

A ministry official said an investigation into twin car bomb attacks on Sunday helped to detect the militia housed in barracks in Souk al-Ahad near Tarhuna, 60 kilometers (35 miles) southeast of Tripoli.

Libyan authorities arrested the key suspect behind two deadly car blasts and three of his accomplices, the interior ministry said on Monday, identifying them as Gadhafi loyalists.

"The key suspect was arrested and admitted that he was directly responsible (for Sunday's attacks in Tripoli) along with four other people," Deputy Interior Minister Omar al-Kadhrawi told a news conference.

Twin car bomb blasts killed two people at dawn on Sunday in the Libyan capital, security officials said, blaming loyalists of now slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi for the attacks.

Tripoli's security chief Colonel Mahmud al-Sherif told Agence France Presse the bombs were detonated by remote control and struck near a military academy and the interior ministry.

Gunmen shot dead Libyan army general and high-ranking defense ministry official Mohamed Hadia on Friday in the eastern city of Benghazi, one of his sons told Agence France Presse.

"My father was returning from the mosque after Friday prayers with a neighbor when a car stopped in front of them with four people on board," Ahmad Hadia said.

"Retired" members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and army are among the 48 Iranians taken hostage in Syria by rebels, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Wednesday, the ISNA news agency reported.

But he said those former military personnel were exclusively on a religious pilgrimage to Damascus when they were seized on Saturday.

Music and laughter spill out of the grey building in the Libyan capital which is home to Radio Zone, one of the hippest channels to hit the North African nation's airwaves after the ouster of Moamer Kadhafi.

"The people haven't been heard for a while so we wanted to have a radio station where everybody can call in, speak their minds and not be afraid that they will be hung up on or made fun of," says presenter Fuad Gritli, 25.

Mauritania's president on Monday ruled out extraditing Abdullah al-Senussi before the feared ex-spy chief for Moammar Gadhafi faces trial in Mauritania for illegal entry.

"Senussi has problems with Mauritania's judiciary and has to face court for entering Mauritania under a false identity," President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said overnight during a local forum in the town of Atar.