Nearly two years ago, Tripoli was considered much safer than Benghazi, where the U.S. was the last flag standing when Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were murdered there on 9/11/12. This past July, the U.S. ‘temporarily relocated’ all U.S. personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli to Tunisia. Last month, reports surfaced which showed Islamists had overtaken the city.
Islamist militiamen stormed the residential annex of America’s embassy in Tripoli on Sunday then took the time to give curious journalists in the Libyan capital a tour.
The group has taken up residence in the annex just over a month after diplomats fled to Tunisia over fears of mounting violence in the North African nation in recent months.
An Associated Press journalist walked through the U.S. Embassy compound Sunday after the Dawn of Libya, an umbrella group for Islamist militias, invited onlookers inside.
Windows at the compound had been broken, but it appeared most of the equipment there remained untouched.
A commander for the Dawn of Libya group said his forces had entered and been in control of the compound since last week and are there to protect the compound from looters.
It comes near the two-year anniversary of the death of US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya’s second-largest city, Benghazi.
A video posted online showed men playing in a pool at the compound.
In a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the video appeared to have been shot at the embassy’s residential annex, though she said she couldn’t “say definitively” since she wasn’t there.
That temporary relocation of U.S. personnel is looking quite a bit more permanent: