“The headquarters of the council of ministers was attacked by armed groups who fired their weapons,” read a statement issued by the office of the prime minister, making no mention of casualties.
The gunmen were “protesting the decision of the National Transitional Council to stop financial grants allocated to the revolutionaries,” who waged war against the regime of slain leaderMoamer Kadhafi last year.
A source close to the prime minister said no one was hurt in the attack.
“The attack was short — just a scare tactic,” the source told AFP.
The interim government slammed the incident as an assault against “the sovereignty and prestige of the state” and rejected the “language of threats and blackmail.”
The ruling National Transitional Council announced on Monday a pause in the payment of bonuses to former rebels due to the widespread phenomenon of fraud which has cost millions of Libyan dinars.
The Tuesday statement reiterated that the freeze would remain in place until a probe into the matter was completed.