World Bulletin / News Desk

Libyan security authorities have imposed a six-hour nighttime vehicle curfew in the eastern city of Benghazi.

"The curfew would be in effect starting midnight and for six hours," the commander of the joint security command room in Benghazi, Abdullah al-Suaiti, said in a Monday statement.

"The decision comes in harmony with the law which allows the army to impose security," he added.

The joint security room is one of the few military institutions in the flashpoint city that did not join renegade former general Khalifa Haftar, who has recently declared war on Islamist militias in Libya.

The room was established in 2013 by then prime minister Ali Zeidan and tasked with securing Benghazi.

Most of the city's regular military units have already pledged allegiance to Haftar and his "Operation Dignity" campaign, which he said was aimed at purging Libya of extremists.

The government, for its part, describes the former general's campaign as an attempted coup against constitutional legitimacy.