TRIPOLI (Reuters) – The United States evacuated its embassy in Libya yesterday, driving diplomats across the border into Tunisia under heavy military escort after escalating clashes broke out between rival militias in Tripoli.
Security in the Libyan capital has deteriorated following two weeks of clashes between brigades of former rebel fighters who have pounded each other with rockets and artillery fire in southern Tripoli near the embassy compound.
The violence is the worst seen in Tripoli and in eastern Benghazi since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi. Western governments fear Libya is teetering toward becoming a failed state just three years after the NATO-backed war ended his one-man rule.
Three F-16 fighters provided air support and Osprey aircraft carrying Marines flew overhead the US convoy as a precaution, but there were no incidents during the five-hour drive from Tripoli to Tunisia, US officials said.
“Security has to come first. Regrettably, we had to take this step because the location of our embassy is in very close proximity to intense fighting and ongoing violence between armed Libyan factions,” US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.
US sources familiar with the matter said there were about eight US diplomats and 200 or more US security personnel in Libya and all had been evacuated.
A Reuters reporter outside the embassy later saw no sign of movement or personnel on the perimeter gate of the compound, which lies a few kilometers from the airport.
Since one militia attacked Tripoli airport two weeks ago, fighting has killed at least 50 people in the capital, shut down most international flights and forced the United Nations and Turkey to pull out their diplomatic staff.
Tripoli was quieter after the evacuation. But at least 25 people were also killed in a day of clashes between Libyan special forces and Islamist militants who are entrenched in the eastern city of Benghazi, security and hospital sources said.
Speaking to reporters in Paris before holding talks on the Middle East, US Secretary of State John Kerry described Libya’s situation of “free-wheeling militia violence” as a real risk to US staff with clashes around the embassy.
Britain’s foreign office yesterday also urged British nationals to leave by commercial means, due to “ongoing and greater intensity fighting in Tripoli and wider instability throughout Libya.”
The battle for control of Tripoli International Airport is the latest eruption in a rivalry among bands of ex-fighters who once battled side by side against Gaddafi. Since then, they have turned against each other in the scramble for control.
