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Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has been kidnapped from a hotel in Tripoli by a group of armed men. Government officials have confirmed that he was snatched from a hotel he was staying at in the capital and taken to an unknown destination. Guards at the Corinthia Hotel have described the incident, which saw two of Zeidan's guards also taken, as an 'arrest'. The men that have taken Mr Zeidan are belived to be former rebels. Two groups are reportedly suspected of the kidnapping, the chamber of revolutionaries and the brigade for the fight against crime, which in principal fall under the defence and interior ministries. Two years after a revolution toppled Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's central government has been struggling to contain rival tribal militias and Islamist militants who control parts of the country. On Tuesday, Mr Zeidan called for the West to help stop militancy in his country. The men are believed to arrived at the hotel in a convoy of vehicles at dawn and led Mr Zeidan out of the hotel. There is thought to have been no gunfire. Mr Zeidan's media representative initially denied that he had been kidnapped and dismissed the news as 'rumours'. But he has since confirmed the news and claimed that he was coerced by the kidnappers into denying the reports. A statement on the Libyan Government's website read: 'The head of the transitional government, Ali Zeidan, was taken to an unknown destination for unknown reasons by a group.' Al-Arbiya television has shown what it claims are stills of Mr Zeidan, a former human rights lawyer, frowning with a group of men in civilian clothes around him. Islamist militant groups were angered last weekend when a top al Qaeda suspect was captured by U.S military in Tripoli. Libyan militants had vowed revenge for the capture of Abu Anas al-Liby by U.S special forces. He was seized in an early morning raid over the bombing of U.S embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. Extremists took to Facebook to urge fellow Libyans to target ships and planes as well as taking U.S. citizens hostage in order to exchange them for imprisoned jihadists. Several groups accused the Libyan Government of colluding with the U.S over the arrest, but officials denied any prior knowledge of the operation. Mr Zeidan's kidnap comes just hours after he met with members of al-Liby's family on Wednesday. According to reports, dozens of unarmed Libyan soldiers occupied Mr Zeidan's office on Monday demanding unpaid wages. Mr Zeidan was appointed Prime Minister by the General National Congress in Libya in October last year and took office the following month. He had previously served as a human rights lawyer in Geneva. Zeidan had previously served as a Libyan diplomat in India. But he was exiled from the country for three years after defecting and forming the National Front for the Salvation of Libya in 1980. During the civil war, he served as the National transitional Council's European envoy and is said to have been instrumental in persuading then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy to back anti-Gaddafi rebels.