Two Italians kidnapped last July in Libya were freed Friday in a raid on Islamic State group hideouts in a city near the capital, officials in Libya and Rome said.

"Two Italian hostages were released... in Sabratha after an operation targeting several houses after information reached security forces that Daesh elements were there," the city's mayor Hussein al-Dawadi said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Five militants killed by Tunisian forces near the Libyan border had slipped across with the aim of carrying out "terrorist attacks", Prime Minister Habib Essid said Thursday.

Essid, in a statement on his official Facebook page, praised the army and national guard units who had eliminated the "terrorist cell sent in from Libya".

At least 28 civilians including five children have been killed in fighting across Libya so far this year, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which has been pushing the north African state's rival parliaments and governments to sign up to a national unity deal, said 38 civilians had also been wounded since January 1.

Mediterranean foreign ministers said Friday that European countries could take unspecified "measures" against parties in Libya who block a U.N.-backed unity government initiative for the war-torn North African nation.

Libya has had rival parliaments and governments since 2014, after an Islamist-led militia alliance overran Tripoli and forced the internationally recognized administration to flee to the remote east of the oil-rich nation.

Seven months after driving the Islamic State group out of Libya's Derna, militia fighters have blocked roads into the coastal city with tree trunks and concrete blocks to prevent their return.

IS took advantage of the chaos in Libya after the 2011 revolution to spread its influence in the oil-rich country, which has had two rival administrations since mid-2014.

A local chief of the Islamic State jihadist group and two aides have been captured in a city near Libya's capital, according to the Tripoli-based government which is not internationally recognized.

The Tripoli interior ministry's special forces unit, on its Facebook page, said the IS "emir" for Sabratha, Mohamed Saad al-Tajuri, also known as Abu Sleiman, was seized in the city, 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of the capital.

A majority of lawmakers from Libya's internationally recognized parliament said Wednesday that they supported a U.N.-backed unity government but had faced intimidation before a confidence vote.

The parliament, located in the eastern town of Tobruk, was unable to hold the vote on Tuesday for the new government line-up because it lacked a quorum.

French special forces have been deployed in Libya to fight the Islamic State group, France's Le Monde reported Wednesday -- triggering an official probe into a possible leak of classified information.

Le Monde said special forces and members of the DGSE external security service were present in Libya for "clandestine operations" against IS jihadists, thought to number several thousand in the chaos-scarred country.

Forces loyal to Libya's internationally recognized government seized a key central neighborhood of second city Benghazi from Islamist militias on Tuesday, the military said.

The advance came as Libya's parliament again failed to vote on a U.N.-backed unity government seen as a crucial step in ending years of political chaos and conflict in the North African state.

Libya's internationally recognized parliament was unable to hold a vote of confidence in the U.N.-backed unity government Tuesday because it lacked a quorum, amid concerns over increasing jihadist expansion.

"The required quorum (89 members of parliament) was not reached, so the president of the chamber adjourned the session," MP Mohamed al-Abbani told AFP.