Al-Qaida blamed for bomb near US mission
Source: Agencies |
June 7, 2012, Thursday
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A bomb exploded outside the US diplomatic mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi overnight, an attack that could be retaliation for the killing, in a US drone strike, of al-Qaida's Libyan second-in-command.
An improvised explosive device went off on the roadside outside the mission's gate in an upmarket area of central Benghazi, but no one was injured, said an official at the US embassy in Libya's capital, Tripoli.
Hours before the attack, Washington had confirmed that a US-operated drone had killed Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan-born cleric and senior al Qaida operative, in Pakistan.
US diplomats said after the Benghazi blast they had asked Libyan authorities to step up security at US facilities in the country, where last year Muammar Gadhafi was overthrown in an uprising supported by NATO air power.
A trade mission from the United States was scheduled to arrive in Libya for meetings starting today in Tripoli and Benghazi. It was not clear if these would now go ahead.
"The possibility that this act took place because of what happened to Abu Yahya is, in my personal opinion, a very strong one," said Noman Benotman, a Libyan former Islamist now an expert on militant groups.
He said there were several possible scenarios, but one was that the attack was carried out by militants connected to al-Qaida's north African arm.
"Al Qaida loyalists maybe wanted to deliver a message to the US ... to say enough is enough," Benotman said.
Libya's government made no immediate comment.
The bombing will revive concerns about the lack of security in Libya, where the weak authorities are still struggling to restore stability after last year's revolt and where arms and explosives are easily available.
In the past two months, there have been armed attacks on the offices of the Red Cross in Benghazi and on a convoy carrying the head of the United Nations mission to Libya.
Tuesday's attack was the first time a US facility had been targeted since Gadhafi was overthrown.
"We have asked the Libyan government to increase its security around US facilities," the US embassy official said.
Amin Salam, of the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce, said some delegates of the US trade mission had arrived in Tripoli yesterday. "They may still go to Benghazi," he said.
Some observers raised the prospect of an insurgency in Libya along the lines of violence that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Many security experts, however, say this scenario unlikely, not least because, unlike in Iraq, the United States has no military presence within Libya.
Experts on militant groups had been predicting that the killing of Libi, described by US officials as a major blow to al-Qaida, would provoke a backlash inside his home country.
Though he spent much of his life outside Libya, he was a member of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which fought an insurgency against Gadhafi in the 1990s, and he has several relatives still in Libya.
An improvised explosive device went off on the roadside outside the mission's gate in an upmarket area of central Benghazi, but no one was injured, said an official at the US embassy in Libya's capital, Tripoli.
Hours before the attack, Washington had confirmed that a US-operated drone had killed Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan-born cleric and senior al Qaida operative, in Pakistan.
US diplomats said after the Benghazi blast they had asked Libyan authorities to step up security at US facilities in the country, where last year Muammar Gadhafi was overthrown in an uprising supported by NATO air power.
A trade mission from the United States was scheduled to arrive in Libya for meetings starting today in Tripoli and Benghazi. It was not clear if these would now go ahead.
"The possibility that this act took place because of what happened to Abu Yahya is, in my personal opinion, a very strong one," said Noman Benotman, a Libyan former Islamist now an expert on militant groups.
He said there were several possible scenarios, but one was that the attack was carried out by militants connected to al-Qaida's north African arm.
"Al Qaida loyalists maybe wanted to deliver a message to the US ... to say enough is enough," Benotman said.
Libya's government made no immediate comment.
The bombing will revive concerns about the lack of security in Libya, where the weak authorities are still struggling to restore stability after last year's revolt and where arms and explosives are easily available.
In the past two months, there have been armed attacks on the offices of the Red Cross in Benghazi and on a convoy carrying the head of the United Nations mission to Libya.
Tuesday's attack was the first time a US facility had been targeted since Gadhafi was overthrown.
"We have asked the Libyan government to increase its security around US facilities," the US embassy official said.
Amin Salam, of the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce, said some delegates of the US trade mission had arrived in Tripoli yesterday. "They may still go to Benghazi," he said.
Some observers raised the prospect of an insurgency in Libya along the lines of violence that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Many security experts, however, say this scenario unlikely, not least because, unlike in Iraq, the United States has no military presence within Libya.
Experts on militant groups had been predicting that the killing of Libi, described by US officials as a major blow to al-Qaida, would provoke a backlash inside his home country.
Though he spent much of his life outside Libya, he was a member of the now-defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which fought an insurgency against Gadhafi in the 1990s, and he has several relatives still in Libya.
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