{"id":68618,"date":"2013-04-23T17:52:31","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T17:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2013\/04\/french-embassy-in-libya-bombed\/"},"modified":"2013-04-23T17:52:31","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T17:52:31","slug":"french-embassy-in-libya-bombed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/04\/23\/french-embassy-in-libya-bombed\/","title":{"rendered":"French embassy in Libya bombed"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\"\"A car bomb has exploded outside the French embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli, wounding two French guards and several residents.<\/p>\n

The blast in Tripoli destroyed the embassy’s ground-floor reception area and perimeter wall, as well as damaging neighbouring homes and shops.<\/span><\/p>\n

French President Francois Hollande called on Libya to act swiftly over this “unacceptable” attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is the first major attack on a foreign embassy in the Libyan capital.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tuesday’s explosion happened shortly after 07:00 (05:00 GMT) in a smart residential area of Tripoli.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the embassy’s guards was severely injured while the other suffered lighter injuries. Several residents were also slightly hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n

One young girl suffered a spinal cord injury and was being transferred to neighbouring Tunisia for treatment, her father told the BBC.<\/span><\/p>\n

The blast took place in a small side street and left a scene of devastation, the BBC’s Rana Jawad in Tripoli reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

As well as extensive damage to the embassy building and perimeter wall, two nearby homes were badly damaged and others affected, while the windows of a shop were blown out and two parked cars were burnt out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many neighbours who gathered in the street to survey the damage were shaken and upset by what had happened, our correspondent says.<\/span><\/p>\n

They told her that there was a lack of proper policing for such a potentially high-profile target.<\/span><\/p>\n

“It was a big mistake to site the French embassy in our neighbourhood,” a local resident said.<\/span><\/p>\n

President Hollande said the attack had targeted “all countries in the international community engaged in the fight against terrorism”.<\/span><\/p>\n

“France expects the Libyan authorities to shed the fullest light on this unacceptable act, so that the perpetrators are identified and brought to justice,” he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius – who has arrived in Libya to see for himself the damage – said French officials would work closely with the Libyan authorities to find out who was responsible for what he called an “odious act”.<\/span><\/p>\n

Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz condemned the bombing as a “terrorist act”, but did not speculate on who might be behind it.<\/span><\/p>\n

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n

French embassies across northern Africa have been on high alert since France sent in troops to help fight an Islamist insurgency in Mali in January.<\/span><\/p>\n

France, under Nicolas Sarkozy, was at the forefront of Nato-led air strikes in 2011 that helped rebel forces topple long-time Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi was attacked by armed men in September 2012, leading to the killing of ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American officials.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: BBC<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A car bomb has exploded outside the French embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli, wounding two French guards and several residents. The blast in Tripoli destroyed the embassy’s ground-floor reception area and perimeter wall, as well as damaging neighbouring homes and shops…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}