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By Sami Zaptia.
Tripoli, 29 April 2013:
Asked about rumours that Interior Minister Ashour Shuwail had resigned due to the French embassy bomb . . .[restrict]and the poor security situation in Libya, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan categorically denied it.
“The Interior Minister has not put forward resignation and has not even thought about resigning”, Zeidan replied briefly and to the point before moving on.
The Interior Minister has been receiving criticism for his failure to protect the French embassy – much like Hilary Clinton for her role in the US Benghazi Consulate.
For example, questions are being asked as to why he had not provided better security to embassies, and especially to obvious possible targets such as those who helped Libya during the revolution?
Equally, initial and unconfirmed reports say that the security guards stationed at the French embassy had been missing when the car bomb went off.
This has raised questions and resulted in a flood of wild conspiracy theories. Did the guards simply go on an unpermitted break? Was it simple incompetence and negligence of duties? Or was there a gap in the handover of shifts? More worryingly, were the guards tipped-off by the bombers – which would raise a complete new set of questions.
The questions are many and very few answers are coming out from the government. This is creating an information vacuum – a vacuum which the rumour-mill is only too happy to fill.
All this is just pure speculation – speculation that the government is doing nothing to answer and prevent from spinning wildly out of control.
Whatever the facts, the bombing has blotted Shuwail’s page. Shuwail had been getting credit for making inroads in the reorganization of the security forces and in stabilizing Libya’s security in general. His performance is deemed much better than his predecessor – albeit the environment is different too.
At least Shuwail is on talking terms with his Chief of Staff and Defence Minister – unlike under the Al-Kib government where there were huge tensions between this key security triumvirate. [/restrict]
