Tripoli: Libyan militias responded to a 48-hour government deadline for them to disband by drawing up lists of people wanted for inciting weekend protests against them.

The Raffala Al Sahati militia, an Islamist group based in Benghazi, was one of at least two groups that drew up a list of more than 100 people, said Bilal Bettamer, a 22-year-old law student and protest organiser. Another armed group had said it arrested 33 military officers amid a crackdown on the militias that had spread to the capital, Tripoli, and neighbouring cities.

“My friend was told he was facing arrest,” Bettamer said in a phone interview. “He went to the police” and was told he wasn’t wanted by them. “We’re waiting to see.”

The lists are an apparent counter-push by the Islamist groups, some of which have been blamed for the death of the US ambassador during a September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. The attack led to mass weekend protests against the militias that have operated with relative impunity in the oil-rich north African nation amid a security vacuum created after Muammar Gaddafi’s ouster and killing last year.

Authorities began to deploy troops in the vacated bases, with military police units sent into three sites, including one that had been the home of Ansar Al Sharia, said General Hamad Belkkhair, the commander of the army garrison in Benghazi. He declined to comment about the reported capture of the military officers.

“Our goal is to bring the militias under full control of the government and the national army,” Ahmad Shalabi, a government spokesman said by phone. “We will start with Benghazi by sending national army officers to all known militia places and then continue throughout the country.”

Tensions rose after the military issued a decree giving unlicensed militias, or those involved in criminal activity, 48 hours to disband. Many of the groups, most of which either have Islamist links or tribal or regional ties, played a key role in last year’s uprising against Gaddafi.

The Soraya Al Thawar Al Libieen, an umbrella group whose name in Arabic loosely translates as “Battalion of Libyan Revolutionaries”, said it had “arrested” 33 military officers on charges of inciting protests against the groups in the city, Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency reported.

While Hana Al Jalal, a human-rights activist, confirmed the wanted list, she was unable to say whether any of the people had actually been detained.