As the US and its European allies condemned "barbaric" acts by the Islamic State Islamic terrorists in Libya, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said that if peace talks did not succeed in ending the war there within a few weeks, "we will find ourselves with another Somalia two steps from our coasts".
"Time is limited," he said, referring to last week's bloodshed in Sirte, the former bastion of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
IS militants seized control of the coastal city in June and beheaded 12 local militiamen before hanging their bodies on crosses.
Hundreds of thousands of Libyans have fled to Italy.
The rise of a jihadist IS offshoot in the centre of the country is causing alarm on the other side of the Mediterranean.
"We are deeply concerned about reports that [the Islamists] have shelled densely populated parts of the city and committed indiscriminate acts of violence to terrorise the Libyan population," said Britain, France, Germany, Spain and the US in a joint statement.
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