DHAKA: The US embassy has shut in the Libyan capital Tripoli due to security concerns.

US state department says, reports the BBC.

Embassy staff were evacuated to neighboring Tunisia ‘due to the ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias’, it adds.

The state department has also issued a travel warning urging US nationals not to go to Libya.

It comes amid fierce clashes between rival militias in the capital, with recent fighting at Tripoli airport.

Libya has been gripped by instability since the 2011 uprising, with swathes of the country controlled by militias.

State department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the withdrawal ‘underscored the Obama administration’s concern about the heightened risk to American diplomats abroad’.

US ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in September 2012.

The US embassy in Tripoli was already operating on limited staffing. All remaining personnel were driven overland to Tunisia in the early hours of Saturday, Harf said.

BDST: 1843 HRS, JUL 26, 2014