Russian diplomats evacuated from Libya - local authorities cannot ensure their safety

Image caption According to preliminary data, none of the Russian diplomats were injured

An armed attack was carried out on the Russian embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli. BBC correspondent Rana Javad reports that shots and grenade explosions were heard near the diplomatic mission building.

“According to the most preliminary data, there were no casualties among the employees of the Russian diplomatic mission. The details of the incident are being clarified,” the Department of Information and Press of the Russian Foreign Ministry told Interfax.

One of the attackers was shot dead and four were wounded, Libyan authorities said.

The attackers tore a Russian flag from the balcony of one of the buildings, but did not go inside, a government official said on condition of anonymity.

Eyewitnesses say attack on embassy may be connected to murder local resident: According to various sources, he was shot by a Russian or Ukrainian citizen. Without delay, the woman was arrested.

She is accused of murder and writing on the wall in his blood, authorities said. She is also accused of stabbing the victim's mother. The authorities do not yet know what caused the woman’s behavior, but noted that in the writings on the wall she spoke negatively about the Libyan revolution.

The embassy attackers call themselves friends of the murdered man.

Don't go out

Local media report several versions of what happened.

According to the first, the woman allegedly came to Libya in 2011, calling herself a supporter of Muammar Gaddafi, remained in the country after the victory of the Libyan revolution and killed a man because she considered him a rebel.

Video footage taken by Libyan security services shows pools of blood at the scene of the murder, as well as an inscription written in blood on the wall: “Death to rats” (Gaddafi’s supporters called the rebels “rats”).

According to the second version, the murdered man blackmailed the woman’s husband. According to the third version, she killed her own husband. There is no reliable confirmation of any of the versions yet.

The local newspaper Libya Herald also believes that the attack was caused by a Russian woman. But according to the publication, she allegedly shot the Libyan revolutionary, who was her husband or partner, with his own Kalashnikov assault rifle.

According to a correspondent for this Libyan publication, it appeared that the attackers were taking televisions and computers out of the building, and perhaps trying to set it on fire. “Plumes of black smoke from a burning car at the main entrance made it difficult to determine whether anything else was burning,” the newspaper writes. According to the publication, “the attackers looked like Salafists.”

A BBC correspondent in Tripoli reports that Libyans armed with machine guns are now guarding the Russian embassy building. Several cars are parked near the building, which are usually used by armed militia fighters. However, it remains unclear who exactly owns these cars.

According to some reports, Russian diplomats are present in the embassy building and have been ordered not to go out.

The Kremlin does not consider the attack to be politically motivated. This was reported to ITAR-TASS by a source in the presidential administration. “As far as I know, this situation was born out of everyday life. Fortunately, none of the embassy employees were injured,” the agency quotes him.

What is this - a terrorist attack or just revenge?

On the evening of Wednesday, September 2, the building of the Russian diplomatic mission in Tripoli was attacked by unknown assailants. According to Reuters, about sixty people in cars tried to break into the embassy territory, but were stopped by security, who opened fire on them. As a result of the attack, at least one of the attackers (according to other sources - two) - a Libyan - was killed. The diplomatic mission employees were not injured. Now the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs is faced with the task of establishing the exact reasons for the attack - whether it was a planned terrorist attack by any group or a spontaneous act of revenge for the death of a Libyan Air Force officer.

The attackers managed to blow up one of the cars of the diplomatic mission and also, as ITAR-TASS reports, citing an anonymous source, to tear off the Russian flag from the building. As a result of the attack, several attackers were wounded and one or two were killed. The embassy employees were not injured and were transported to the airport building. Apparently, it was for this reason that none of the telephones of the diplomatic mission that MK tried to call answered.

According to sources in the Libyan Ministry of Internal Affairs, revenge for the death of a Libyan serviceman is being considered as one of the possible versions of the attack on the Russian Embassy. According to information leaked to the media, not long ago a certain Russian woman killed an aircraft mechanic officer named Mohammed Susi, and also wounded his mother with a knife. It is reported that the murder was committed in the Souk Juma district of Tripoli. According to one version, the woman was the wife of the deceased - and what happened was the result of a family quarrel.

The exact nationality or citizenship of the mythical killer is not specified, but it is worth remembering that abroad the definition of “Russian” often includes people from other former member countries of the USSR - for example, when people from Ukraine and Russia were just detained in Libya, accused of aiding the regime Gaddafi, they appeared in the press for some time as Russians. As for the current situation, the Al-Arabiya TV channel is already reporting that, perhaps, there was no “Russian woman”, and the officer was killed by his fellow citizens because at one time he supported Gaddafi. According to the Qatari TV channel Al-Jazeera, a certain Ukrainian woman is suspected of murder, who allegedly tried to hide on the territory of the Russian embassy.

Another, no less plausible version, given the instability in Libya, could be a terrorist attack organized by some local group. Since the death of Muammar Gaddafi, a strong government has not been formed in the country, and clashes break out every now and then between representatives of different tribes and clans. As for Russia, its embassy could easily become a target for, for example, surviving supporters of Gaddafi - given how Moscow behaved at one time, not approving the intervention in Libya, but not preventing it either. However, with the same success, the diplomatic mission could also find itself under fire from Gaddafi’s opponents from among radical Islamists - as was the case in the September 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, as a result of which the US ambassador to Libya and 3 other Americans were killed.

Let us note that the current attack on the Russian diplomatic mission in Libya is not the first. Last February, supporters of the anti-Assad opposition, enraged by Moscow's position in the UN Security Council on the situation in Syria, climbed onto the roof of the embassy in Tripoli, damaged surveillance cameras and lowered the Russian flag.

During the attack on the Russian embassy in Tripoli, one of the Libyans who attacked the building was killed and four more were wounded. None of the diplomatic mission employees were injured. According to some reports, the attack on the embassy was provoked by a woman, a citizen of either Russia or Ukraine, who killed a Libyan officer the day before. Correspondent Sergei Gololobov has details of the incident.

Video in in social networks: a group of people near the embassy fence with a burning car in the background. These images were apparently filmed after the actual attackers had fled. And it’s just onlookers who take pictures. Information about what happened the night before in Tripoli varies somewhat. According to some sources, more than half a hundred people took part in the attack on the Russian embassy, ​​according to others - only 10, albeit armed with hand grenades and machine guns. First, they opened fire on a diplomatic vehicle parked in the parking lot, and then on the embassy itself. The attackers also tore down the Russian tricolor. The Libyan security service, as reported by its employee Adel al-Badnoni, arrived at the scene of the emergency very quickly. As soon as law enforcement officers arrived at the scene of the incident, the attackers tried to escape. However, five of them were wounded by Libyan special services. One of the attackers later died. As for the Russians, embassy workers, almost all of them, even before the incident, were evacuated to the local airport, where they waited out the attack. None of Russian citizens Fortunately, he was not injured, said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.

“The head of the interim government of Libya, Ali Zidan, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of this country, Mohamed Abdelaziz, visited the scene of the emergency tonight. According to local media, officials assessed the damage to the building of the diplomatic mission. In addition, Zidan expressed gratitude to citizens and security agencies for their help and the protection of the embassy. As for the reasons for the attack on the Russian diplomatic mission, there are still preliminary versions. The main one is that the attack was provoked by a certain native of the CIS, a supporter of the overthrown leader of Libya Muammar Gaddafi, who came to this country through the Tunisian border. The day before, she killed a local air force officer. Moreover, his mother was wounded and blood stained the walls of his house. Accordingly, those who attacked the embassy came to avenge their pilot. However, it later turned out that this attacker was most likely a citizen of Ukraine, and the attackers allegedly confused the two embassies. countries, the police did not officially confirm this information, but emphasized that the incident was not connected with local terrorist groups.

“The delegation’s visit was organized based on the results of meetings between the Russian leadership and the Deputy Prime Minister of the GNA of Libya, Ahmed Maityg. We look forward to discussing development issues in detail economic ties between Russia and Libya. This event is another confirmation that bilateral relations are actively developing between Russia and Libya various levels“, noted the head of the Russian contact group on the intra-Libyan settlement, Lev Dengov.

“The visit of GNA Prime Minister Faiz al-Sarraj to Russia will depend on how much the Russian side will meet us halfway on the issue of resuming the work of the embassy,” Shkevat said. According to him, without restoring the work of the diplomatic mission, it is “unreasonable” to talk about the visit of the Libyan Prime Minister to Russia, unless we are talking about a situation of an emergency nature.

Maityg spoke about the preparations for Saraj’s visit to Moscow during his trip to Russia in mid-September - he came at the invitation of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. The Deputy Prime Minister began his visit from Grozny and then headed to Moscow. At the same time, at the invitation of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a representative of the camp hostile to the government in Tripoli, the press secretary of the Libyan National Army, Brigadier General Ahmad Al-Mismari, was on a visit to Moscow. The visits coincided by chance - neither Al-Mismari nor Maityg expressed a desire to hold bilateral negotiations in Moscow.

After the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, a unified control center has not been formed in Libya: power is in the hands of several factions. The west of the country is controlled by the GNA, created in December 2015 under the auspices of the UN and based in Tripoli, led by Fayez al-Sarraj. He is supported Western countries, as well as Türkiye and Qatar. In the east and parts of the south, power is in the hands of the Libyan House of Representatives, elected in 2014, known as the Tobruk government. It is supported by the Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who is supported by the UAE and Egypt.

Arriving on Wednesday, October 11, the delegation from Tripoli consists of 20 people - it included representatives of the authorities state power, business and development funds. The visit of Libyan officials and representatives of the business community was organized by the Russian Contact Group on Intra-Libyan settlement.

Revitalize the economy

The visit is also aimed at achieving “bilateral ambitions” to increase trade and economic cooperation, Shkevat noted. According to RBC's interlocutor in the contact group, the Libyan delegation is scheduled to meet with representatives in Moscow Russian authorities. So, on Thursday in the first half of the day there was a meeting with the Deputy Minister Agriculture Evgeny Nepoklonov. “At the meeting, the issue of exchanging experience and developing trade, including grain supplies from Russia, was discussed,” the source notes. “Libya’s internal capabilities for the production of grain crops cover no more than 30% of the country’s needs, so its leadership is looking for opportunities to diversify supplies,” notes RBC’s interlocutor.

In addition to direct commercial relations on issues of grain supplies, at a meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture the possibility of cooperation on the issue of vaccination, chemical plant protection, as well as training of Libyan specialists in the field of agro-industry was discussed.

Moscow as a mediator

Bogdanov met with the representative of the PNS, Deputy Prime Minister Maityg, on September 15 in Moscow. They discussed the prospects for resolving the protracted conflict in the country. The situation in Libya was discussed with Bogdanov and Al-Mismari two days earlier.

Then Al-Mismari told RBC that Russia could become another platform for negotiations that would complement previous formats, including in Abu Dhabi and Paris, where representatives of the opposing camps in Libya failed to reach an agreement. “Perhaps this is the right path we should take now. We have already tried several other sites, but, unfortunately, these turned out to be just talk and empty promises. We hope that the Russian platform will be stronger and more effective,” he said.

Al-Mismari also expressed hope that “Russia will show its position together with countries friendly to Libya in the UN Security Council on the issue of lifting the ban on the supply of weapons to the Libyan armed forces,” Al-Mismari told RBC during his September visit to Russia.

Maytyg then stated that the PNS welcomes the efforts of all countries in resolving the conflict, however, he stressed that all initiatives should be conducted under the auspices of the UN, which recognizes the government of al-Sarraj as the legitimate Libyan government.

Lev Dengov (Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin / Kommersant)

Moscow, insisting on its absolute neutrality, expressed its readiness to help the conflicting parties. Russia’s position on Libya is “equally close, not equidistant to all participants,” Russian representative Lev Dengov said on September 15 at a press conference with the participation of Maytyga in Moscow. According to Dengov, right now in Libya there are suitable conditions for resolving the conflict, since two sides have emerged that control their areas and at the same time for a long time remain stable. “This is already an indicator for us,” he explained.

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The Libyan delegation seems to be calling for Russian diplomats to “understand and forgive” and return to Tripoli. And all this against the backdrop of pressure from the American side on our Russian diplomatic missions, flags being torn down, etc.