Libya's National Oil Corporation declared force majeure Wednesday at 11 oil fields in the center of the country after attacks by Islamists.

The measure is a legal status that protects a company from liability when it is unable to fulfill contracts for reasons beyond its control.

Libya urged the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to approve a request for military purchases as it struggles to combat Islamic State extremists and protect its oil fields.

The internationally-recognized government, one of two bodies that claims to rule troubled Libya, has asked the council's sanctions committee to grant an exemption to an arms embargo and allow it to beef up its air force.

The United Nations said Wednesday that representatives of Libyan leaders had been invited for talks next week in Algeria as part of efforts to resolve their country's conflict.

"The United Nations Support Mission in Libya announces that a meeting of representatives of Libyan political leaders and activists will convene early next week in Algeria," UNSMIL said.

Militia warplanes attacked a major oil export terminal in Libya Tuesday but were driven off by anti-aircraft fire without being able to hit their targets, a spokesman for guards there said.

In response, planes from the internationally recognized air force struck Tripoli's militia-controlled Mitiga airport without causing any casualties, said the head of the internationally recognized government's air force.

Libya's internationally recognized parliament voted on Monday to return to U.N.-brokered talks on the future of the crisis-hit country, a week after suspending its participation, a lawmaker said.

The motion to resume the negotiations was adopted at the end of a meeting between members of parliament and the U.N.'s special envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, the lawmaker Abu Bakr Beira told Agence France-Presse.

A once-retired general leading a sweeping offensive against Islamists has been named Libyan army chief, an official said Monday, in a move expected to deepen divisions in the conflict-riven country.

"I've chosen Major General Khalifa Belgacem Haftar for the post of commander-in-chief of the army after promoting him to the rank of lieutenant general," Aguila Salah, the speaker of the internationally recognized parliament, told Agence France-Presse.

Libya's internationally recognized premier threatened new air strikes with Egypt against the Islamic State group in his country, warning Friday that the jihadists were poised to widen their presence there.

Abdullah al-Thani was referring to February 16 air strikes on the IS stronghold of Derna after the group released a video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, mostly Egyptians.

More than 25,000 Egyptians have returned from neighboring Libya since the Islamic State group posted a video earlier this month of the beheadings of Christian compatriots, the foreign ministry said Friday.

Egypt carried out air strikes against jihadist targets in Libya on February 16 in retaliation for the executions of the 21 Copts and urged its large expatriate workforce to head home for their own safety.

After fighting with rebels in Libya and embracing the revolt in Syria, Matthew VanDyke has rolled up in northern Iraq, but the celebrity American revolutionary-cum-filmmaker has traded his fatigues for a three-piece suit.

VanDyke, who rose to fame as a foreign fighter backing Libyan rebels against Moammar Gadhafi, has just finished leading his new military contracting firm through its first assignment -- training Christian volunteers to take on jihadists.

The body of a female civil society activist was found stuffed in the trunk of a car in the Libyan capital on Tuesday, a security source said.

The corpse of Intissar al-Hassaeri was discovered in Tripoli along with that of her aunt "hours after their disappearance" on Monday night, the source told Agence France-Presse.