Rare clashes between fighters from the Islamic State group and the Fajr Libya militia coalition erupted Saturday in the central city of Sirte, security and militia officials said.

It was the first report of fighting between the two groups since February, when Fajr Libya said it had sent reinforcements to Sirte to restore security there.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that Washington will decide "very soon" on freeing military aid to Egypt frozen since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Kerry made the announcement on the sidelines of an international investment conference in Egypt, after four Arab states pledged to offer $12 billion (11.4 billion) in investment aid to help revive its economy.

The $12 billion pledged by three Arab states to Egypt at an international conference this weekend is a message of "clear political support" to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a minister said Saturday.

Sisi, who ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and brutally crushed his supporters, has sought to persuade allies that his country is on the front lines of a war against regional militants. 

The EU is considering a possible civil or military mission in Libya if talks on forming a unity government succeed, sources said Friday, as concern grows over the threat posed by insecurity in the North African nation.

Foreign ministers from the 28 European Union nations meeting in Brussels on Monday are set to discuss ways of supporting any new administration that would be formed by a deal between Libya's warring factions.

U.N.-mediated talks in Morocco between Libya's rival parliaments aimed at forming a national unity government will resume Wednesday, a lawmaker for the internationally recognized legislature said.

Mohammed Sharif Elouafi spoke after U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon held a new round of consultations Friday with representatives of the rival legislatures.

U.N. Security Council member Spain called Thursday for a deal to end unrest in Libya within weeks and said a U.N. resolution would be needed to approve any NATO intervention there.

Concerned by violence and the rise of Islamist groups in Libya, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo appeared in Madrid alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to tout security cooperation in the region.

The Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch detained on Thursday three women in the southern port city of Sidon linked to the smuggling of Lebanese and Palestinian people to Italy on a ferry traveling from Libya.

Two Lebanese women identified as Ghinwa Z. and Rita R., who own a traveling agency, and a Palestinian female Hasiba H. were arrested by police in Sidon, media reports said.

Warring factions in Libya have a choice between a political deal to end violence or the destruction of their oil-rich North African country, U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon said on Tuesday.

Leon was speaking in neighboring Algeria, as he pressed ahead with talks aimed at ending the violence that has plagued Libya since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that ousted and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Libya's request for U.N. approval to buy fighter jets, tanks and other weaponry to fight Islamic State militants has been put on hold at the request of seven Security Council members led by Spain, diplomats said Monday.

Libya had asked a Security Council committee for an exemption to an arms embargo to make the purchases from defense contractors in the Czech Republic, Serbia and Ukraine.

Tunisian security forces on Monday uncovered a second arms cache in three days near the border with Libya, the interior ministry said.

"As part of ongoing operations against terrorist cells and their members... (security forces) have discovered a new weapons cache 15 kilometers (nine miles) from Ben Guerdane" in the southeast, it said.