Car Explodes Outside French Embassy in Libya

The explosion of a car parked outside the French Embassy in Libya wounded two French guards on Tuesday in what appeared to be the first major attack on a diplomatic compound in the capital since the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011.

If deliberate, the blast would be the most significant such attack on a diplomatic facility in Libya since a siege of an American outpost in Benghazi last September, in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. A string of more minor attempted attacks on Western or United Nations diplomats began before that attack and has continued since then, although mostly outside the capital,according to NYT.

No one claimed responsibility Tuesday, following the pattern of earlier attacks. But Libyans immediately suspected militant angry over the French intervention in Mali, where French troops are supporting government efforts to oppose militants in the north of the country. The assault came a day after the French Parliament voted to extend the French military deployment there.

The explosion Tuesday morning took place at around 7 a.m. in Tripoli and tore through a wall of the French Embassy compound. Smoke billowed from the burning remains of a car believe to have been used as a bomb. Residents said the blast was one of the largest explosions in Tripoli since Colonel Qaddafi’s fall.

A resident living nearby, who spoke in return for anonymity for fear of reprisals, compared the blast to the worst days of violence in Iraq. “I was knocked out of bed. I lived in Baghdad and I woke up to explosions as big as this one,” she said.

Aside from the two guards, the embassy was largely empty at the time of the blast, limiting the casualties. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a French diplomat on the scene said the blast had destroyed half the building. Damage from the force of the blast extended about five hundred yards, breaking windows in neighboring buildings and houses. A broken water main flooded the street.

The diplomat said one of the two injured guards had left the hospital while the other was in a more serious condition.

Attacks or bombings targeting Western diplomats have been more common around the eastern city of Benghazi, in a region known as a center of militancy. But since the killing of the American ambassador most Western diplomats have pulled out of Benghazi and retreated to better-secured facilities in Tripoli, in the West.

In January, Italy, the former colonial power in Libya, closed its consulate in Benghazi and withdrew its staff because of security concerns after an attempted ambush of the Italian consul. Last month, Libyan security officials said they had arrested two men in the kidnapping near Benghazi of five British humanitarian activists, at least two of them women who had been sexually assaulted.

The attack on the French Embassy, however, may raise new questions about the possibility that militants may now try to strike other targets in the capital as well. The country as a whole is viewed by outsiders as potentially perilous with many weapons in the hands of citizens and militias beyond government control. Most foreigners in Tripoli take elaborate security precautions.

M.D