Libyans oust extremist militia from Benghazi

Libyan protesters ousted a jihadist militia from its headquarters and seized a number of other paramilitary bases in Benghazi early this morning in heavy clashes that left four people dead.

The seizure of the headquarters of Ansar al-Sharia, which has been accused of, but denied, involvement in the murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans last week over an anti-Islam film - came after tens of thousands took to the streets on Friday to protest against the power of the militias.

The group's members took flight as hundreds of protesters stormed and then torched its compound, and also evicted it from the city's Al-Jalaa hospital, where they were replaced by military police, an AFP correspondent reported.

But to the alarm of senior officials, the demonstrators also stormed a raft of other paramilitary bases in the city controlled by former rebel units that had declared their loyalty to the central government.

It was at one such base - the headquarters of the Raf Allah al-Sahati Brigade, an Islamist unit under the authority of the defence ministry - that the four people were killed in clashes between its fighters and hundreds of protesters, some of them armed.

Another 40 people were wounded in the pre-dawn fighting at the base in a farm in the Hawari district on the outskirts of Benghazi, hospital records showed.