For daring to fight back against jihadists in Mali. “Car bomb targets French Embassy in Libya,” by Esam Mohamed for the Associated Press, April 23:
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — A car bomb targeted the French Embassy in the Libyan capital early Tuesday, wounding two French guards and a Libyan teenager in an attack that President Francois Hollande denounced as an assault not only on France but all countries engaged in the fight against terrorism.
Two years after the country’s civil war, Libya is struggling to maintain security, build a unified army and reining in militias, which include rebels who fought to oust the country’s longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
It was the first such assault on an embassy in the Libyan capital. On Sept. 11, four Americans – including the U.S. Ambassador in Libya Chris Stevens – were killed when militants attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission on the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.
Terrorists with al-Qaida’s North Africa branch, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, are believed to have played a key role in the Benghazi attack. But no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on the French Embassy in Tripoli.
Last week, AQIM, threatened to seek revenge against all countries taking part in the French-led war in Mali, warning that no one who “participated in this ferocious attack” will be safe. It called on “all Muslims to target France and its interests and subjects inside and outside France until it withdraws the last soldier from the land of the Muslims and lifts its support of rulers of the region.” That threat came as part of a question and answer session on AQIM’s new Twitter account….