LIBYAN PRIME MINISTER ALI ZEIDAN FREED FOLLOWING 'KIDNAP'

The Libyan prime minister, Ali Zeidan, has been freed following his kidnapping in the early hours of Thursday morning from the hotel in Tripoli where he lives.

Hashim Bishar, head of the Tripoli supreme security committee, the government's gendarmerie, said units of "revolutionaries" from the eastern Tripoli suburb of Suq Juma went to the place where he was being detained, released him, and are keeping him in the house of one of the fighters in the district for his own safety.

"Zeidan is well, he is at the home of one of our revolutionaries, he is being kept safe," he said, speaking live on a Libyan television station. "Our revolutionaries went to the place where he was being detained and demanded he be handed over. He was handed over, now he is safe."

He did not say who had kidnapped Zeidan, seized from his hotel room in the city centre Corinthian hotel at 4am on Thursday morning.

The abduction comes amid anger among Libya's powerful Islamic militant groups over the US Special Forces raid on Saturday that seized Libyan al-Qaida suspect known as Abu Anas al-Libi.

Several groups and Libi's family members have accused the government of complicity in the raid, though Zeidan has denied all knowledge of the operation.

State news service Lana had earlier said that Zeidan was captured by the Revolutionary Operations Room of Libya, a government security force composed of former rebels, reporting that a statement from the group said he would be charged under the Libyan penal code with endangering state security. The group denied any involvement in the operation.