The wave of instability has not died down as one could predict.

BBC reporting 3 January 2013 Last updated at 11:06 ET

Gunmen have kidnapped the acting head of the criminal investigation department in Libya's second city, Benghazi, officials have said.

Abdelsalam al-Mahdawi was abducted at traffic lights on his way to work. It is not known who was behind the attack.

Interior Minister Ashour Shwayel promised to find the officer and the perpetrators, news agency AFP reported.

Libyan authorities have been struggling to provide security since the Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011.

Last November, Benghazi's police chief was assassinated in a drive-by shooting.

More than a dozen other security officers were killed last year in Benghazi, the city where the uprising began.

AFP news agency quoted a security official as saying that the investigator "had many enemies".

"He had files on everyone - Gaddafi loyalists, hard-line Islamists and common criminals," said the unnamed official.

A group of police officers has staged a protest against the kidnapping.

Source http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20898108