Militia Says It ‘Secured’ U.S. Compound in Libya
An
Islamist fighter from the Fajr Libya (Libyan Dawn) coalition flashes
the V sign for victory at the entrance of Tripoli international airport
on August 24, 2014 (AFP Photo/Mahmud Turkia)
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) —
The Islamist-allied militia group in control of Libya's capital has
"secured" a U.S. Embassy residential compound there, more than a month
after American personnel evacuated from the country over ongoing
fighting, one of its commanders said Sunday.
The Islamist
militia's move likely will reinvigorate debate in the U.S. over its role
in Libya, more than three years after supporting rebels who toppled
dictator Moammar Gadhafi. It also comes near the two-year anniversary of
the slaying of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans
in Libya's second-largest city of Benghazi.
An
Associated Press journalist walked through the U.S. Embassy compound
Sunday after the Dawn of Libya, an umbrella group for Islamist militias,
invited onlookers inside. Some windows at the compound had been broken,
but it appeared most of the equipment there remained untouched. The
journalist saw treadmills, food, televisions and computers still inside.
A
commander for the Dawn of Libya group, Moussa Abu-Zaqia, told the AP
that his forces had entered and been in control of the compound since
last week, a day after it has seized control of the capital and its
international airport after weeks of fighting with a rival militia.
Abu-Zaqia said the rival militia was in the compound before his troops
took it over.
The Dawn of
Libya militia is not associated with the extremist militia Ansar
al-Shariah, which Washington blames for the deadly assault on the U.S.
Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, that killed Stevens and the
three other Americans.
On
July 26, U.S. diplomats evacuated the compound and the capital to
neighboring Tunisia under a U.S. military escort as fighting between
rival militias intensified. The State Department said embassy operations
would be suspended until the security situation improved. The fighting
prompted diplomats and thousands of Tripoli residents to flee. Dozens
were killed.
A video posted
online surfaced Sunday showing men playing in a pool at the compound and
jumping into it from the roof. Voice heard in the video identified it
as the U.S. Embassy compound.
In
a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the
video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy's residential annex,
though she said she couldn't "say definitively" since she wasn't there.
"To
my knowledge & per recent photos the US Embassy Tripoli chancery
& compound is now being safeguarded and has not been ransacked," she
wrote on Twitter. She did not immediately respond to a request to
elaborate. State Department officials in Washington also declined to
immediately comment.
Tripoli
is witnessing one of its worst spasms of violence since Gadhafi's ouster
in 2011. The militias, many of which originate from rebel forces that
fought Gadhafi, became powerful players in post-war Libya, filling a
void left by weak police and a shattered army. Successive governments
have put militias on their payroll in return for maintaining order, but
rivalries over control and resources have led to fierce fighting among
them and posed a constant challenge to the central government and a
hoped-for transition to democracy.
Following
weeks of fighting that brought the capital to a standstill, the Dawn of
Libya militia said last week it managed to seize control of Tripoli's
airport and drive a rival militia from the mountain town of Zintan out
of the capital. It is now deployed around the capital and has sought to
restore normalcy in the city. The group called on foreign diplomats to
return now that the fighting has subsided.
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