By Noora Ibrahim.
Benghazi, 4 July 2014:
A campaign against Salafist preachers is taking place in Benghazi according to security . . .[restrict]observers there.
Three have now been murdered since the start of Ramadan. All were well known in Benghazi’s Sidi Hussein area.
Sheikh Mohammed Farjani, the imam at the Al-Uzu Mosque in Benghazi’s Leithi district, was murdered in Sidi Hussein on Wednesday evening. His body was taken to Benghazi Medical Centre (BMC), a source at the hospital has said.
His killing follows closely on that of Mabruk Mahmoudi, another Salafist imam, who was shot earlier the same day by unknown gunmen outside the mosque where he preached in Sidi Hussein. He later died at the BMC.
The imam at the Abdala Abed Mosque in Ras Abeda, Moutaz Sharif, was gunned down as he left Maghreb prayers on Tuesday. A Salafist who had spoken against terrorism, Sharif was on the side of the army and police. He lived in the Sidi Hussein district.
Shortly before Ramadan, another Salafist imam, Sheikh Salah Mohammed Ahraka, was shot dead in Zawawa district, near Salmani on 23 May.
The killings are being blamed on militant Islamists and are said to be part of a deliberate campaign to silence Salafsti figures in Benghazi.
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