Gunmen at Libyan luxury hotel take hostages; 3 guards dead

[webfact]

Gunmen at Libyan luxury hotel take hostages; 3 guards dead
By ESAM MOHAMED

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — A Libyan security official says gunmen have stormed a luxury Libyan hotel popular with foreigners and have taken hostages after killing at least three guards.

Essam Al-Naas, a spokesman for a Tripoli security agency, said the standoff is continuing Tuesday at the Corinthia Hotel.

Hassan al-Abey, a corporate sales manager at the hotel, said five masked attackers wearing bulletproof vests stormed the hotel, shooting in the air. He said the hotel was evacuated before the attackers clashed with the guards and blew up a car bomb in the parking lot of the seaside hotel.

Al-Abey was among those evacuated. He said the hotel had Europeans and Turkish guests.

Tripoli has been hit with series of car bombs and shootings amid turmoil following the country's 2011 civil war.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-01-27

[aothai]

Gaddafi warned us many years ago and all the time, he told the world politicans, if the westerners remove the leaders in North Africa there will be terror and they will overrun Europe. Bingo!!!

[chefseph]

siege now over. terrorists killed by Libyan forces

[A1Str8]

They should have taken out each other.

[webfact]

Gunmen storm Libya hotel, killing American, 9 others
ESAM MOHAMED, Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — In the latest sign of Libya's descent into chaos, gunmen stormed a luxury hotel used by diplomats and businessmen in the capital on Tuesday, killing 10 people, including an American, a French citizen and three people from Eastern Europe.

Two attackers were killed following an hourslong standoff that included a car bomb that exploded in the parking lot of the seaside Corinthia Hotel. It was unclear if other gunmen were involved in the attack, which also killed five Libyan guards.

In Twitter posts and a statement on social media, a Tripoli affiliate of the Islamic State group was said to be behind the attack, but there was little evidence to back up the claims in a country that has been awash in armed extremist groups who would be equally suspect.

The SITE intelligence group reported that the two dead gunmen were identified online as sympathizers of IS and said the militants said the hotel was targeted because it houses diplomatic missions and "crusader" security companies. However, The Associated Press was unable to independently confirm the claims, which didn't conform with the group's earlier postings from Libya.

Militants claiming the attack on behalf of a group called the Islamic State of the Tripoli province posted a brief video showing burned cars in the hotel's parking lot and said it was to avenge the 2013 abduction by American commandos of a Libyan al-Qaida operative, Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, also known as Abu Anas al-Libi. Al-Ruqai died earlier this month in a New York hospital of complications from liver surgery while awaiting trial for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The assault highlights the growing threat from militant groups that operate with near impunity in a country torn between rival governments since the 2011 toppling and killing of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Since Gadhafi's ouster, the country has been torn among competing militias and tribes vying for power. Libya's post-Gadhafi transition has collapsed, with two rival governments and parliaments — each backed by different militias — ruling in the country's eastern and western regions.

Amid the bloody political rivalry, multiple armed groups have emerged, including radical Islamist militias who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, including one based in the eastern city of Derna, a stronghold of radical groups, as well as regional militias and groups loyal to the former regime.

Tripoli, which has been controlled by Islamist militiamen mostly from the western city of Misrata since the summer, has been hit with a series of car bombs and shootings. The internationally recognized government has been forced to relocate to the country's east, where a former general has waged an offensive against Islamist militias, including Ansar al-Shariah, blamed for the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead.

A senior U.S. State Department official confirmed that a U.S. citizen was among those killed in Tuesday's attack, but did not provide further details. A French national and three citizens of former Soviet republics were also among the dead, according to a spokesman for a Tripoli security agency, Essam al-Naas.

The Malta-owned Corinthia hotel, among the most luxurious in Tripoli, is frequented by diplomats and foreign businessmen visiting Libya, and is also where the United Nations support mission in Libya usually holds its meetings. The mission is currently hosting political talks with rival Libyan groups in Geneva, trying to resolve the country's political and security crisis.

The hotel had Italian, British and Turkish guests but was largely empty at the time of the attack, according to hotel staff members. There was also a visiting American delegation.

The militia-backed government in Tripoli said the target was Prime Minister Omar al-Hassi, who normally resides at the hotel but was not there at the time of the attack. Spokesman Amr Baiou told reporters al-Hassi was unharmed.

A security official in Tripoli, Omar al-Khadrawi, said initial investigations pointed to a group of former Gadhafi loyalists.

Reports about how the attack unfolded were conflicting and it was not immediately possible to reconcile the different accounts.

Hotel staffers initially said that five masked gunmen stormed the Corinthia after security guards at the hotel's gate tried to stop them, firing randomly at the staff in the lobby as guests fled out the hotel's back doors into the parking lot.

One staffer said a car bomb exploded in the parking lot after a protection force entered the lobby and opened fire on the gunmen. Two guards were immediately killed, according to the staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared being targeted by militants.

The car bomb incinerated at least five cars in the parking lot and damaged windows in the hotel's facade, he said.

Al-Naas, the security agency spokesman, said after a standoff of several hours, the attackers threw a grenade at the security forces on the hotel's 24th floor, killing themselves and a security guard. Ten people were also wounded in the attack, including security guards and guests.

"The operation is over," al-Naas said but added that the streets around the Corinthia remained closed. He said an investigation was underway and the car used by the gunmen is believed to be the same one used in an assault on the Algerian embassy 10 days ago that wounded three guards.

The U.N. Security Council condemned the attack "in the strongest terms" and urged all countries to help bring "the perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice." In a statement approved by all 15 members, the council also urged all parties in Libya "to engage constructively" with U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon and resume "an inclusive political process aimed at addressing the political and security challenges" facing Libya.

The Corinthia previously came under attack in 2013 when gunmen abducted then prime minister Ali Zeidan, who was living there. He was released several hours later.
__

Associated Press writers Sarah el-Deeb in Cairo and Edith M. Leder at the United Nations contributed to this report.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-01-28

[siampolee]

aothai post # 2

Gaddafi warned us many years ago and all the time, he told the world politicans, if the westerners remove the leaders in North Africa there will be terror and they will overrun Europe. Bingo!!!

The trouble was that Qaddafi knew too much and those world leader at the time wanted him destroyed so as they could cover their misdeeds and double dealing and of course impose their brand of democracy (read now anarchy) on Libya.

Now as said those leaders actions have come home to roost

[Estrada]

I worked for Colonel Ghadafi for 6 years from 2004 until 2010, and often visited this hotel run by the Maltese Corinthia Hotel Group. I am in daily contact with my Libyan friends who are currently trying to bring an end to the in-fighting and set up a Government acceptable to the majority of Libyans. The attacks were carried out by Libyans returning from fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, not by the local militia. This is a similar to the recent attacks in France.

[maidee]

people with more than 2 brain cells still go to those crazed countries ?

[Kerryd]

The whole "Arab Spring" thing was a farce from the beginning. Tunisia is one of the few countries that hasn't been plunged into chaos as a result, but things are not rosy there either as their formerly happy, secular state is facing changes and demands from the fundamentalists. Egypt is on it's 3rd government and facing a fresh wave of protests as not everyone has gotten everything they were expecting to get immediately after overthrowing the previous 2 governments. Libya ? Total basket-case of a country now. I pointed out at the time that it was sham. The "West" had plenty of opportunities to take out Qaddafi in the previous 20-30 years and didn't. Their reasoning for doing it in 2011 was spurious at best, just as was their decision to "recognize" unelected, self-appointed rebel groups as the "legitimate" government. Who in their right minds ever thought that giving huge amounts of weapons to uneducated, untrained, undisciplined, poorly lead rebels would result in a happy ending ? Oh well, at least Italy and France got the cheap oil they were after in the first place. Kinda makes you wonder just who is getting the revenues from all that cheap oil now though........

Funny too how the "Arab Spring" protests that happened in western-aligned countries (UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia) were all allowed to be squashed with extreme prejudice by their governments, with nary a peep or tut-tut from anyone. No "harshly worded" UN memos. No sanctions. No official reactions at all.

Reap what you sow. Syria - wow - things kinda backfired on the powers-that-be behind the whole Arab Spring there eh. Maybe the "west" learned a bit of a lesson just in time from the nightmare in Libya. Once again though, unelected, self-appointed rebels were declared the "legitimate" government despite there being absolutely NO indication that the majority of the people in that country agreed with that declaration. The "west" simply decided that whoever was against Assad must be the right choice, however they stopped short of throwing the firepower at him like they did against Qaddafi. A few too many problems withing the ranks of their appointed "legitimate" government no doubt caused the hesitation. Nothing like having a terrorist organization you are trying to eradicate as a part of the "legitimate" government you've appointed to rule a sovereign country you shouldn't have been interfering in to begin with.

Now "they" are in a quandary, as the enemy of their enemy is not their friend ! How to support their chosen new rulers without inadvertently also supporting the terrorists ? Just because Assad is anti-Israeli doesn't mean his adversaries are pro-Israeli. In fact they are more likely to be even more anti-Israeli that Assad is ! Could you imagine the mess that region would be in now if the west had of thrown in massive air support against Assad like they did against Qaddafi ? Not only would Assad be gone, but you'd have another Libya all over again, only worse this time as there are more, and better established, players in the region (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc) all fighting for control and all relishing the chance to wipe out Israel (or at least inflict some serious damage on them) and all using weapons supplied (in large part) by Israel's western allies ! The irony in that would itself be ironic.

Of course the rebels try to blame the west for not supporting them the way they did in Libya. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I guess the rebels figured they'd just sit back and watch the west bomb Assad into early retirement and then they'd waltz in and take over where he left off. I had a discussion a few months ago about the number of weapons that had been given to the rebels and how many rebels there (supposedly) were. Worked out to about 3 AKs per rebel. My first question after seeing that was - where are all those excess weapons going ? (Sold on the black market seemed to be the consensus answer.)

Of course, in hindsight it was a good decision to not support the rebels too much, as a large portion of the support they did get is now in the hands of Daesh/ISIS/(whatever their name of the day is today). Different terrorist groups in different countries are all jumping on their bandwagon now as they seem to be the ones achieving results (though they've been dealt some setbacks themselves in recent days). Intelligence services should monitor hospitals in the near future to see if there is an increase in broken ankle injuries as all those splinter groups jump off that bandwagon the minute it looks like Daesh is getting put down like a flea infested rodent. Afghan militias are famous for that, and have even been known to change sides in the middle of a battle and attack their former allies when it seemed like that was their best chance of winning !

Libya will continue to be a nightmare until a strong, hard-handed leader finally emerges and crushes all opposition like ants under his boot. Until then you are going to see a continuance of violence as every wannabe that has a dozen (armed) supporters tries to take as much power for himself as he can.

People who go on and on about "hating cops" and hating governments and hating rules and regulations should take a good long look at Libya right now. Imagine living in that kind of world where almost everyone has a weapon, and 99% of them don't like you and there's nothing stopping them from coming after you if they chose to.

[nahkit]

The whole "Arab Spring" thing was a farce from the beginning. Tunisia is one of the few countries that hasn't been plunged into chaos as a result, but things are not rosy there either as their formerly happy, secular state is facing changes and demands from the fundamentalists. Egypt is on it's 3rd government and facing a fresh wave of protests as not everyone has gotten everything they were expecting to get immediately after overthrowing the previous 2 governments. Libya ? Total basket-case of a country now. I pointed out at the time that it was sham. The "West" had plenty of opportunities to take out Qaddafi in the previous 20-30 years and didn't. Their reasoning for doing it in 2011 was spurious at best, just as was their decision to "recognize" unelected, self-appointed rebel groups as the "legitimate" government. Who in their right minds ever thought that giving huge amounts of weapons to uneducated, untrained, undisciplined, poorly lead rebels would result in a happy ending ? Oh well, at least Italy and France got the cheap oil they were after in the first place. Kinda makes you wonder just who is getting the revenues from all that cheap oil now though........

Funny too how the "Arab Spring" protests that happened in western-aligned countries (UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia) were all allowed to be squashed with extreme prejudice by their governments, with nary a peep or tut-tut from anyone. No "harshly worded" UN memos. No sanctions. No official reactions at all.

Reap what you sow. Syria - wow - things kinda backfired on the powers-that-be behind the whole Arab Spring there eh. Maybe the "west" learned a bit of a lesson just in time from the nightmare in Libya. Once again though, unelected, self-appointed rebels were declared the "legitimate" government despite there being absolutely NO indication that the majority of the people in that country agreed with that declaration. The "west" simply decided that whoever was against Assad must be the right choice, however they stopped short of throwing the firepower at him like they did against Qaddafi. A few too many problems withing the ranks of their appointed "legitimate" government no doubt caused the hesitation. Nothing like having a terrorist organization you are trying to eradicate as a part of the "legitimate" government you've appointed to rule a sovereign country you shouldn't have been interfering in to begin with.

Now "they" are in a quandary, as the enemy of their enemy is not their friend ! How to support their chosen new rulers without inadvertently also supporting the terrorists ? Just because Assad is anti-Israeli doesn't mean his adversaries are pro-Israeli. In fact they are more likely to be even more anti-Israeli that Assad is ! Could you imagine the mess that region would be in now if the west had of thrown in massive air support against Assad like they did against Qaddafi ? Not only would Assad be gone, but you'd have another Libya all over again, only worse this time as there are more, and better established, players in the region (Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc) all fighting for control and all relishing the chance to wipe out Israel (or at least inflict some serious damage on them) and all using weapons supplied (in large part) by Israel's western allies ! The irony in that would itself be ironic.

Of course the rebels try to blame the west for not supporting them the way they did in Libya. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I guess the rebels figured they'd just sit back and watch the west bomb Assad into early retirement and then they'd waltz in and take over where he left off. I had a discussion a few months ago about the number of weapons that had been given to the rebels and how many rebels there (supposedly) were. Worked out to about 3 AKs per rebel. My first question after seeing that was - where are all those excess weapons going ? (Sold on the black market seemed to be the consensus answer.)

Of course, in hindsight it was a good decision to not support the rebels too much, as a large portion of the support they did get is now in the hands of Daesh/ISIS/(whatever their name of the day is today). Different terrorist groups in different countries are all jumping on their bandwagon now as they seem to be the ones achieving results (though they've been dealt some setbacks themselves in recent days). Intelligence services should monitor hospitals in the near future to see if there is an increase in broken ankle injuries as all those splinter groups jump off that bandwagon the minute it looks like Daesh is getting put down like a flea infested rodent. Afghan militias are famous for that, and have even been known to change sides in the middle of a battle and attack their former allies when it seemed like that was their best chance of winning !

Libya will continue to be a nightmare until a strong, hard-handed leader finally emerges and crushes all opposition like ants under his boot. Until then you are going to see a continuance of violence as every wannabe that has a dozen (armed) supporters tries to take as much power for himself as he can.

People who go on and on about "hating cops" and hating governments and hating rules and regulations should take a good long look at Libya right now. Imagine living in that kind of world where almost everyone has a weapon, and 99% of them don't like you and there's nothing stopping them from coming after you if they chose to.

Just a couple of points/questions.

"Oh well, at least Italy and France got the cheap oil they were after in the first place." - so what price were they paying during the Gaddafi era compared to afterwards? Did the NOC release this information to you?

"The "West" had plenty of opportunities to take out Qaddafi in the previous 20-30 years and didn't. Their reasoning for doing it in 2011 was spurious at best, just as was their decision to "recognize" unelected, self-appointed rebel groups as the "legitimate" government."

Libya held their first ever democratic elections in July 2012 so who are the unelected, self-appointed groups that you refer to?

Other than that, I tend to agree with most of what you say.