On July 30, five days before the Syrian kidnaping, seven men from the Iranian Red Crescent were abducted in Benghazi by unidentified armed men carrying out what appeared to be a fairly professional kidnap operation.
The armed men blocked the vehicle carrying the Iranians, then pulled the seven out and put them in another vehicle, driving off without doing any harm to their Libyan driver.
The Libyan Red Crescent said it had invited the Iranian Red Crescent to send aid workers to help with relief work in the city and urged the kidnapers to free the men.
Wanis ash-Sharif, a deputy interior minister of Libya, said the kidnapers had offered to free the seven men if Iran obtained the release of dozens of Libyan nationals being held in Iraqi prisons.