Three Libyan soldiers were killed and four others wounded Tuesday in a suicide car bomb attack on a road checkpoint west of the embattled city of Benghazi, a military official said.

The official said an attacker drove an explosives-laden car into the checkpoint, located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Benghazi on the road to Ajdabiya.

The Islamic State group's branch in Libya has claimed the abduction of 21 Christians, a monitor reported Monday, as Egypt confirmed that 20 of its citizens were being held in the country.

"Urgent. Soldiers of the Islamic State captured 21 Christian crusaders," the jihadists said in a statement picked up by the SITE Intelligence Group.

The head of Libya's recognized government has pleaded for more help from the international community, warning that the country could become a dangerous haven for jihadists on Europe's doorstep.

In an interview with Agence France Presse ahead of hoped-for peace talks in Geneva this week, Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani said his government especially needed the lifting of an arms embargo to combat militias defying its authority.

The United Nations announced Saturday a new round of peace talks in Geneva next week between Libya's warring factions, as the European Union warned the country was at a "crucial juncture".

It came as fighting between troops and Islamist militia killed 13 people in eastern Libya.

Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral Saturday of Abu Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaida suspect who died in the United States days before facing a trial for bombing US embassies.

Libi had been due to stand trial Monday over 1998 attacks on the U.S. missions in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and wounded around 5,000.

The U.N. called Friday for Libya's warring factions to resume peace talks "before it is too late" after its envoy to the violence-plagued state met with rival camps.

U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon, who held talks for the first time with retired General Khalifa Haftar, said "time was running out" to tackle the country's political and security crises.

Turkey has urged all Turkish citizens remaining in Libya to leave "quickly" due to the deteriorating security situation in the conflict-torn country.

Turkey on Wednesday condemned as "unacceptable" and "irresponsible" a statement allegedly made by the Libyan Air Force in a Facebook post warning all Turkish civilian and military planes would be shot down should they enter Libyan air space.

U.S.-led aircraft have dropped nearly 5,000 bombs in the air war against Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria, damaging or destroying more than 3,000 targets including tanks, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The latest figures released by the U.S. military signal a steady expansion in the scale of the air campaign launched in August and also reveal an adversary with hundreds of armored and other sophisticated vehicles at its disposal.

The United States Tuesday condemned a strike by Libyan aircraft that bombed an oil tanker off the Islamist-held port of Derna, killing two crew members.

The crewmen -- a Greek and a Romanian -- were killed on the Liberian-registered vessel, the Araevo.

The world is losing its ability to prevent conflicts and the lack of "effective leadership" has led to the worst displacement situation since World War II, the U.N. refugee chief warned Tuesday.

Antonio Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in Ankara that the twin crises in Iraq and Syria had created a serious displacement situation and the world showed no effective leadership to address the challenges.