Libya's General National Congress on Sunday, under pressure from armed militias, voted through a controversial law to exclude former regime officials from government posts. Gunmen who had surrounded the foreign and justice ministries to press for officials from the regime of the late dictator Moamer Kadhafi to be sacked from top government jobs lifted the sieges when state television broke the news.

Libya's army took up positions Friday at strategic sites around the capital, where militias have besieged state institutions for the past week, an AFP journalist reported. Soldiers in pickup trucks mounted with machineguns and anti-aircraft weapons were also deployed on Martyrs Square in the heart of Tripoli where a demonstration against the militias is set to take place on Friday.

Gunmen pressed their siege of two Libyan ministries on Wednesday, leaving the authorities in a dilemma of whether to risk a bloody confrontation or reinforce the image of a helpless state by negotiating patiently. They have encircled the foreign ministry since Sunday and the justice ministry since Tuesday, demanding the sacking of former officials from the ousted regime of Moamer Kadhafi. The same groups, most of them former rebels who fought to oust Kadhafi in 2011, briefly occupied the finance ministry on Monday.

Armed men demanding the expulsion of officials from the former regime of ousted Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi Tuesday surrounded the justice ministry in Tripoli, where the foreign ministry has similarly been encircled for the past three days, an official said. "Several armed men in vehicles equipped with anti-aircraft guns surrounded the ministry of justice," Walid Ben Rabha, head of the ministry's information department, told AFP. "They asked the minister and staff present to leave their offices and close the ministry."