Black smoke billowed as men burned tyres and torched cars after one protester had smashed through the compound's gate with a bulldozer and others attacked the walls with construction tools, local media reported.
LIBYA - Protesters stormed Libya's parliament in the eastern city of Tobruk on Friday and set parts of it ablaze, venting their anger at deteriorating living conditions and months of political deadlock.Libya's House of Representatives has been based in Tobruk, more than 1,000 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli, since an east-west schism in 2014 that came three years after a mass popular revolution toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
"We want the lights to work," chanted protesters, some of whom were brandishing the green flags of the Kadhafi regime.The interim prime minister of the Tripoli-based government, Abdulhamid Dbeibah, meanwhile voiced support for the protesters' concerns in a Twitter message.
The United Nations said Thursday that talks between the rival Libyan institutions aimed at breaking the deadlock had failed to resolve key differences. After Bashagha failed to enter Tripoli in May, the rival administration has taken up office further east in Sirte, Kadhafi's coastal hometown.