Tripoli: ISIS have claimed to be behind the attack on luxury Libyan hotel, Corinthia, popular with foreigners.
Reports claim at least three guards were killed and unspecified numbers of persons were taken hostage on Tuesday.
Essam Al-Naas, a spokesman for a Tripoli security agency, said a standoff continued Tuesday afternoon at the Corinthia Hotel, which sits along the Mediterranean Sea.
According to one report, a hotel staffer claimed five masked attackers wearing bulletproof vests stormed the hotel after security at the gates tried to stop them. He said they entered the hotel and fired randomly at the staff in the lobby.
The staffer said the gunmen fired in his direction when he opened his door to look out. He said he joined the rest of the staff and foreign guests fleeing out the hotel’s back doors into the parking lot.
A bomb was also exploded in the parking lot, only a hundred meters (yards) away.
The hotel famous with Italian, British and Turkish guests, had a similar situation in 2013 when a former prime minister was abducted from there.
Since the ouster and 2011 killing of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, the country has been torn among competing militias and tribes vying for power.
Libya’s post-Gadhafi transition has collapsed, with two rival governments and parliaments — each backed by different militias — ruling in the country’s eastern and western regions. Tripoli has been hit with series of car bombs and shootings amid the turmoil.
Â