Witnesses and residents said the gunmen stormed into Libya's parliament in the capital, Tripoli, on Sunday after first attacking it with anti-aircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.

Lawmakers were forced to flee under a barrage of heavy gunfire, official media reported.

The state-run LANA news agency said the militants had closed all the roads around the National Congress after the attack.

Details of the armed group were unclear, but a spokesman for former general Khalifa Haftar said his irregular forces had carried out the assault.

The spokesman, Mohamed al-Hegazi, told the al-Ahrar television station that Haftar's troops had targeted Islamist lawmakers and officials.

"This parliament is what supports these extremist Islamist entities," al-Hegazi said. "The aim was to arrest these Islamist bodies who wear the cloak of politics," he added.

Fragile security

Libya's parliament has been paralyzed by divisions between Islamist parties and more nationalist rivals. Critics see this problem as key to the country's failure to achieve a democratic transition following the ouster of dictator Muammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Haftar, who was a former rebel in the war against Gadhafi, has said he wants to clear the country of Islamist militias. On Friday, his fighters attacked bases of Islamist militants in the northern city of Benghazi in attacks that left some 70 people dead.

On SaturdayHaftar said he would continue his offensive in Benghazi, despite the government calling his operations a "coup attempt."

Libya's government and army have failed to bring former rebels and militias in the country under control after Gadhafi's ouster, and security remains poor.

tj/jm (dpa, AP, Reuters)