Three injured in Tripoli embassy bomb blast

Two years after the country’s civil war, Libya is struggling to maintain security, build a unified army and rein in militias, which include rebels who fought to oust the country’s long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

It was the first such assault on an embassy in the Libyan capital. On September 11, four Americans – including the US Ambassador in Libya Chris Stevens – were killed when militants attacked the US 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.

French officials have expressed concerns about the possibility of greater instability in Libya, where they believe at least some rebel fighters from Mali fled following France’s military onslaught to dislodge al Qaida-linked militants who once controlled the vast north of the West African country.

In the latest attack, the car bomb was detonated just outside the embassy building in Tripoli’s upscale al-Andalus neighbourhood around 7am. It wounded two French guards and a Libyan girl in her teens, who was in a nearby house.