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The state-owned National Oil Corp. posted a statement on its website declaring force majeure, saying it could no longer ensure production at the facilities due to the deteriorating security situation. The move frees the company of liability.

Two fields, Bahi and Mabruk, had been attacked last month and were seized again Monday and Tuesday by unknown militants. Gunmen at Mabruk claimed to represent the Islamic State militant group. A third field, Dahra, was attacked late Tuesday.

Col. Hakim Maazab, who commands oil guards in the region, said Wednesday the militants had withdrawn from Mabruk, after destroying oil tanks and a control room. IS militants elsewhere retreated from oilfields after setting them ablaze.

Libya has been embroiled in civil war since the 2011 uprising against dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Two rival governments -- the internationally recognized government and the rebel government Libya Dawn, which took over Tripoli last summer -- have been conducting airstrikes against each other as multiple rebel militias operate in the country.

Libya was producing around 1.2 million barrels of oil per day before NATO forces entered the country to protect civilians from attacks by Gaddafi loyalists. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said the member state was producing around 343,000 bpd as of January, a 27 percent decline from December. National Oil Corp. reported recent production gains despite the attacks due to resuming operations at the Sarir field.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah K. Jones wrote in the the Libya Herald in February that the country may go broke if oil continues to get caught in the cross fire.

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Egypt bombed Islamic State militants in neighboring Libya on Monday and called on the United States and Europe to join an international military intervention in the chaotic North African state after extremists beheaded a group of Egyptian Christians.

The airstrikes bring Egypt overtly into Libya's turmoil, a reflection of Cairo's increasing alarm. Egypt now faces threats on two fronts a growing stronghold of radicals on its western border and a militant insurgency of Islamic State allies on its eastern flank in the Sinai Peninsula as well as its own internal challenges.

Islamic State group weapons caches and training camps were targeted "to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers," a military statement said. "Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield to protect and safeguard the security of the country and a sword that cuts off terrorism."

The announcement on state radio represents Egypt's first public acknowledgement of military action in post-Moammar Gadhafi Libya, where there has been almost no government control.

Libya is where the Islamic State group has built up its strongest presence outside Syria and Iraq. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is lobbying Europe and the United States for a coordinated international response similar to the coalition air campaign in those countries.

"What is happening in Libya is a threat to international peace and security," said El-Sissi.

El-Sissi spoke with France's president and Italy's prime minister Monday about Libya, and sent his foreign minister, Sameh Shukri, to New York to consult at the United Nations ahead of a terrorism conference opening Wednesday in Washington.

The bombs were dropped by U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets that left Egyptian bases for targets in the eastern Libyan city of Darna, according to Egyptian and Libyan security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk the press.

The strikes came hours after the Islamic State group issued a grisly video of the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians, mainly young men from impoverished families who were kidnapped after travelling to Libya for work. The video shows them being marched onto what is purported to be a Libyan beach before masked militants with knives carve off their heads.

Thirteen of the 21 came from Egypt's tiny Christian-majority village of el-Aour, where relatives wept in church and shouted the names of the dead on Monday.

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Egypt strikes Islamic State in Libya, pushes for international action

For nearly four years, the West has largely stayed on the sidelines as Libya descended into post-revolution chaos. Now the bloody beheadings of a group of Egyptian Christians at the hands of Islamic State could draw the international community back into the densely complex tangle of fighting in the oil-rich North African nation.

Egypt, seeking retribution for the cruelly cinematic execution of 21 Coptic men who had gone to Libya to work as laborers, carried out at least two waves of airstrikes Monday in neighboring Libya. The warplanes targeted what Egypt said were training camps and weapons caches belonging to a Libyan offshoot of Islamic State, which in recent months has made inroads in several parts of the country, seizing on the power vacuum left by the chaotic but so far inconclusive struggle among an array of competing militias.

At the same time, Egypt launched a diplomatic offensive, describing the Sunni Muslim militant group and its allied armed groups in Libya as a universal threat that must be confronted forcefully and not by Egypt alone. It would be a double standard, a Foreign Ministry spokesman argued, for the U.S.-led military coalition to fail to take action in Libya that is just as firm as the airstrikes it is conducting against Islamic State in its heartland, encompassing parts of Syria and Iraq.

Egypt is under attack, the spokesman, Badr Abdelatty, told reporters. But the militants of Daesh, he said, referring to the group by its Arabic acronym, also pose a direct threat to international peace and security.

In Egypt, the full horror of the mens executions, depicted in a graphic video released online late Sunday, was still sinking in on Monday. In the governorate of Minya, south of Cairo, many of the bereaved families were village neighbors. Relatives there wept as they clutched portraits of their dead loved ones. President Abdel Fattah Sisi hurried to Cairos main Coptic cathedral to offer condolences, and dispatched senior officials to attend funerary prayers in Minya.

If Egypts military reaction was swift, its diplomatic one was equally so. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, en route to New York, was given marching orders to appeal to the U.N. Security Council to act against Islamic State. Sisi also conferred by phone with Frances president, Italys prime minister, Russias foreign minister and Secretary of State John F. Kerry, the Foreign Ministry said.

Islamic States message appeared in some ways designed to galvanize a European response. In the video, staged on a Mediterranean beach outside the Libyan capital of Tripoli, the lead executioner referred boastfully to the groups foothold less than 500 miles from the shores of Europe and the symbolic center of Christianity, gleefully describing this latest killing field as south of Rome.

In Italy, the onetime colonial power in Libya, officials cited by the Associated Press said they would weigh taking part in any military intervention if one were decided upon, but that diplomacy should come first.

Italy has already borne the brunt of a massive wave of human trafficking originating in Libya, which at this point is essentially ungoverned despite having two competing governments. Thousands of would-be migrants, many of them seeking to escape the Syrian war, have died trying to make the perilous crossing to Italy.

In Libya, where the situation was dire even before Islamic State began making inroads, fighters swearing allegiance to the group have seized at least partial control of several cities, including the port of Derna, where Mondays Egyptian airstrikes took place. The group is also strong in the central coastal city of Surt, where the Egyptian workers were seized in two incidents in December and January, and the Tripoli-based Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for a deadly attack last month on a luxury hotel in the Libyan capital.

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Egypt strikes Islamic State in Libya after video of mass beheadings

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Disputes between rival Libya governments, coupled with increased violence attributed to Islamic State militants, have spilled over into the oil sector. British energy company BP said in a much-watched annual report published last month that long-term production issues may result from the lingering violence.

The U.N. Support Mission in Libya said it met with rival leaders to discuss ways to advance political dialogue and cease-fire proposals.

"The participants agreed on the principle of a ceasefire and underlined the need to end the bloodshed in Libya and engage in dialogue," the mission said in a weekend statement.

In its monthly report for February, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said member-state Libya was producing around 343,000 bpd as of January, a 27 percent decline from December. U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah K. Jones wrote in the Libya Herald the country may go broke if oil continues to get caught in the cross fire.

German energy company Wintershall last week offered a mixed report on operations in a dividing Libya. Some production has resumed, but operations are staffed entirely by Libyan personnel as "the company had to withdraw all international staff, including contractors, due to the tense security situation in the country."

Staff members assigned to the company's office in Tripoli, where operations are "very limited," are working from home.

2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

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U.N. meets rivals in oil-rich Libya

Libya:Thousands of Egyptians Head Back Home
Libya #39;s security situation has been rapidly deteriorating in the last few months, as militias fight for control of the country. But it was the shocking execu...

By: CCTV Africa

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Libya:Thousands of Egyptians Head Back Home - Video