Obscure Libyan group blamed for US envoy’s killing
13 Sep 2012
The deaths of US ambassador to Libya J Christopher Stevens and three other US officials when armed men stormed the US embassy in Benghazi shows that the ouster of long-time dictator Muammar Gadaffi has not brought stability to the country.
Residents who gathered in the eastern Libyan city to mourn the death of Stevens could not agree who had been behind the attack. But recent months have seen assassinations of security officers from the ousted gadaffi government and the destruction of minority Sufi Muslim shrines. Western analysts have warned that radical Islamist groups are looking to exploit the vacuum, but Libya's new rulers have been reluctant to crack down on anyone other than those who were associated with Gadaffi.
Meanwhile Libya's deputy ambassador to London, Ahmad Jibril, has blamed a little-known Islamist group - Ansar al-Sharia – as the perpetrators.
The group apparently took advantage of a demonstration against a trailer for a controversial American film, Innocence of Muslims. Although the trailer has been around for a year, an Arabic version was recently uploaded to the internet.
According to accounts, a group of people were demonstrating outside the US consulate on Tuesday when they were joined by members of an Islamist group in pickup trucks.
The number of fighters was reported to vary from as many as 80 to as few as 20.
