By Farah Waleed.
Tripoli, 31 January 2015:
A group of gunmen are reported to have attacked the Jordanian embassy in west Tripoli. There . . .[restrict]are conflicting accounts of what exactly happened, however. According to some reports, quoting Essam Al-Naas, the spokesman for the joint security operations room in Tripoli, the embassy itself was the target, was robbed and a security guard kidnapped.
According to another local security official, however, the attackers were after a vehicle belonging to the diplomatic police stationed outside the embassy but bungled the robbery. The would-be thieves were arrested, the official claimed.
Tripoli officials have, however, been assiduous recently in claims that the capital is safe in Libya Dawn’s hands and that militants in the city do not exist.
Like most Arab and European embassies, the Jordanian mission was closed. Diplomats pulled out last May after the Jordanian ambassador was kidnapped by militants in Tripoli demanding the release of a Libyan Islamist found guilty of terrorists offences in Jordan and imprisoned. The ambassador was later released.
It is not known if the attack is connected to demands by the Islamic State (IS) that Jordan free a would-be female suicide bomber, Sajida al-Rishawi. IS has threatened to murder a pilot, Muath al-Kaseasbeh, captured in December after his plane crashed in Syria, if Rishawi is not released. Jordan has responded by saying that it will fast-track Rishawi’s trial and execution and those of all other IS militants if Kaseasbeh is murdered. [/restrict]
