A car bomb Sunday in the eastern Libya city of Benghazi killed a former security official who served under slain dictator Moamer Kadhafi's regime, a top official said.

"A colonel of the former internal security apparatus was killed and his escort was seriously wounded" by the explosion of his own car, Deputy Interior Minister Yunis al-Sharif told AFP.

"It was an assassination. The car was booby-trapped," he added.

The vehicle blew up early in the afternoon on Jamal Abdelnasser street in the centre of Benghazi, an AFP correspondent reported.

The bombing is the latest in a series of such attacks in the east of the country that have targeted former security officials who served under Kadhafi before he was captured and killed in an uprising last year that began in Benghazi.

These have been blamed on radical Islamists, who were violently suppressed under Kadhafi's regime.