Suicide bomber kills 6 at Libya checkpoint

Benghazi – A suicide bomber killed six people, including a child on Thursday at a checkpoint in a Libyan oil region that has been shaken by a recent jihadist assault, the Red Crescent said.
“I am at the morgue where six bodies from the site of the attack were brought, including the body of a child,” said Mansour Ati, the head of Libya’s Red Crescent.
The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber at the entrance to the town of Ras Lanouf, said Ossama al-Hodeiri, a spokesperson for the security forces that guard nearby oil facilities, who was at the scene.
“A driver in a Toyota Land Cruiser blew himself up at a checkpoint at the entrance to the town of Ras Lanouf,” said Hodeiri.
He said three guards and a 16-month-old baby were killed, and that two other guards had been wounded.
Ati said two other people died in the assault but their identities were not clear. Reports suggested they were relatives of the baby.
The suicide bombing comes after the Islamic State group launched an offensive on Monday against Libya’s key oil terminals in Ras Lanouf and nearby Al-Sidra.
It also coincided with a suicide truck bombing early on Thursday on a police training school in the coastal city of Zliten, east of Tripoli, that killed more than 50 people.