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By Ashraf Abdul Wahab
Tripoli, 2 October 2013:
It is still unclear exactly what happened earlier this evening when gunmen attack the Russian . . .[restrict]embassy in Dahra. The foreign ministry in Moscow confirmed the attack but said that the intruders were quickly expelled.
“There has been an incident in Tripoli tonight,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich told Russian broadcaster RT, “in which there was shelling and attempts to enter the territory of the Russian Embassy in this country.”
According to Russian sources, two cars drove up to the main entrance and men inside shot up a vehicle that was parked outside, setting it ablaze. From various directions, there was believed to be small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades fired at the building It is also said that the attackers managed to scale the compound walls on three sides.
The Russians are insisting that the situation was brought under control very quickly by security forces. This appears to be a reference to Russian-controlled guards within the embassy, not Libyan security forces. These, including the diplomatic police, some of whom should have been occupying an patrol station at one of the compound’s corners, were notable by their absence.
Moscow admitted that the attackers had torn down the Russian flag in what looks as if it was a repeat of the February 2012 assault, when Syrians and Libyans, protested Russian and indeed Chinese blocking of an interventionist UN policy on Syria. This may have meant that the attackers again got onto the main roof of the embassy.
In the noise and confusion of the incident, the Libya Herald saw what looked like TV screens and computers being looted from the building, which may also have been subjected to attempts to set it alight. The pall of black smoke rising from the blazing car at the main entrance made it hard see if there were more than one fire. The majority of the attackers were Salafist in appearance.
The Russians are saying that all of their people were safe after the attack. However there are reports that one Libyan may have died in the invasion.
The embassy attack may have been a response to the Suq Al-Jumah murder of a prominent Revolutionary fighter by his Russia wife or Girlfriend, using his own Kalashnikov.
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