Armed groups in the Libyan capital Tripoli on late Friday stormed a hotel used as a headquarters by the country's new presidential council.   

Unverified images on social media showed armed, uniformed men standing at the entrance to the Corinthia Hotel in the heart of the city. Local press labeled them militias.

Presidential council spokeswoman Najwa Wahiba confirmed that armed men had stormed "one of the headquarters where the council meets."

She said nobody from the council was in the building at the time as the body does not work on Fridays, the weekly day of rest in Libya.

However, a senior official at the presidency council later denied that the groups had been armed or used force, playing down the incident.

"There was no kidnapping, gunfire, or an attack on me or the hotel," the head of the presidency council's office, Mohamed al-Mabrouk said in a social media video, adding that he had been in the hotel at the time of the incident.

Unity government faces challenges to authority

Libya was plunged into chaos after longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was ousted and killed in a NATO-backed uprising in 2011, and over the years the conflict has drawn in several foreign powers.

An October ceasefire created a unified government — led by Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah and the presidential council — as part of a United Nations roadmap for December elections.

It also replaced rival administrations in the eastern and western parts of the country.

PM Dbeibeh has worked to win support from Libya's many rival factions, forming a large cabinet that included an array of ideological and regional figures.

Still, the presidential council and the unity government have faced both criticisms and challenges to their authority.

Foreign troops remain entrenched in Libya

In eastern Libya, commander Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) still hold sway nearly a year after their 14-month offensive to seize the capital collapsed.

In Tripoli, the armed groups that pushed Haftar back from the capital with Turkish support still control the streets.

Foreign mercenaries remain entrenched on both sides of the heavily fortified front line, despite international calls for the warring sides to pull them from the country.

In March, the UN Security Council called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and mercenaries, estimated to number as many as 20,000.

Last week, Foreign Minister Najla al-Mangoush repeated the call for all foreign fighters to leave while standing next to visiting Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The minister's statement angered many in Tripoli and the west.

He had received backing from several countries, notably Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

sri/mm (Reuters, AFP)