By Moutaz Ali.
Tripoli, 27 November 2016:
A Khoms businessman has offered a million dinars for the capture of the terrorist-style killers of a friend and his family in the town on Friday.
Ehmaida Al-Emimem, his two sons and a daughter were murdered in their home in the Suq Al-Khamis district. There are unconfirmed reports that the father was beheaded with IS terrorist-style savagery. The suggestion that this was indeed a terrorist crime is backed by the inscription “Head of the Islamic State” daubed on a wall in the property. A third son is said to have escaped the massacre and is being treated for shock.
The million dinar reward is being offered by Othman Suliman Ben Neran, a friend of the family. He used his social media page to invite informants to contact him securely and said that the money would be paid in cash in Libya or anywhere else in the world.
The Emimem murders have deeply shocked the town which is in three days of official mourning. Few details of the crime have been revealed. One report has it that there was an attempt to burn the bodies. It is also being said that some LD 100,000 in cash and jewellery was stolen.
Though it appears that investigators suspect the IS terrorist slogan on an internal wall may have been a ruse by common criminals, outside commentators believe that this savage assault is the first clear manifestation of an IS presence in the town. Comparisons have been made with the early arrival of terror cells in Sirte and Sabratha.
This is not in fact the first killing in Khoms recently. In September the pregnant wife of leading Salafist Nasser Abu Sabah died when the car he was driving was raked by gunfire in the town. Though the murder was ascribed to feuding families, there were suggestions of some IS involvement.
