Tripoli, Jan 13

 Some unidentified men shot dead Libya's deputy industry minister Hassan Darole in Sirte city, medical and security sources said Sunday.

Darole was gunned down by unknown militants near a market in downtown Sirte during a visit to his hometown, Xinhua quoted a security source as saying in Sirte, 500 km from Libya's capital and largest city Tripoli.

"We received Darole's body with several bullet holes," a medical source at Ibn Sina Hospital said. 

Darole was also a member of the National Transitional Council formed in the wake of the 2011 unrest which toppled the nation's long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi.

He was named as undersecretary of the industry ministry and then appointed as deputy minister in the current interim government.

His assassination marks the first killing of a political figure in Libya after the revolution.