Benghazi bomb may be al-Qaeda reprisal

A BOMB that exploded outside the American consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi early yesterday morning is thought to be a reprisal for the killing earlier this week by US forces in Pakistan of Libyan-born al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi.

Libyan officials said the bomb was hurled from a car in the early hours of the morning, damaging the gate and injuring a security guard.

“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 ex-Islamist who is now an expert on militant groups.

But the attack is only the latest strike against foreign targets in Benghazi, following last month’s grenade attack on the local office of the Red Cross and a similar attack on a convoy carrying United Nations special envoy Ian Martin in the city in April.

The starkest evidence of a jihadist militia came in March, when Islamist militiamen were filmed smashing more than 200 British war graves at a Commonwealth cemetery in the city.

The ease with which anti-western units can operate in Benghazi, with the authorities unable or unwilling to confront them, will be a concern to diplomats, amid speculation that Libi was in the process of setting up an al-Qaeda cell in eastern Libya before his death.

Islamic militias played a peripheral role in last year’s uprising against the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi, but there are reports they enjoy generous funding from Qatar.

The Islamist Justice and Construction Party, which is hoping to make big gains in elections scheduled for later this month, has in the past distanced itself from jihadist groups.

Islamist groups operating near Benghazi came to prominence in the 1990s, when the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group began a ten-year insurgency against the Gaddafi regime. The uprising was crushed and many members fled abroad. LIFG veterans came out of hiding at the start of last year’s uprising.