Gunmen seize Libyan PM Ali Zeidan before dawn, free him hours later

10-10-2013 • Nic Robertson. Saad Abedine and Faith Karimi

In remarks to a Cabinet meeting broadcast on Libyan state TV, Zeidan said he did not want to see the situation escalate and urged Libyans to show "wisdom."

Zeidan's abduction from a luxury hotel early Thursday highlighted the security threat posed by militias that have run rampant in Libya since the revolution that ousted Moammar Gadhafi two years ago.

"These types of groups exploit these types of gaps that exist in the country at the moment, given the fact that we are in the process of building our criminal justice system," Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdelaziz told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

But the prime minister appeared to play down his kidnapping, characterizing it as an internal political problem.