Libyan Militia Parties at US Embassy Compound: Reports

Video shows alleged trespassers laughing, frolicking in pool
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 1, 2014 10:57 AM CDT

What happens in Tripoli, stays in Tripoli—except in this video, which purports to show Libyan militia members partying in the pool of an abandoned US Embassy residential compound. In the clip, fully clothed men gleefully leap into the pool from a balcony of the embassy's residential annex, which diplomats fled along with the embassy itself in July due to battling militias. At least one man in the extended video clip is shown holding a weapon, but one other appears to be clutching a bottle of booze, reports the New York Times; several others look like they're videotaping the entire scene on their cellphones.

A Dawn of Libya commander tells the AP that the Islamist group wrested control of the compound last week from a rival militant group from Zintan, but he insists his people are keeping the place in good condition—they even got cleaners to come—and that "any area controlled by Dawn of Libya is totally secure and there are no troubles at all." AP reporters who were given a tour say that mostly everything seems to be in place, save a few broken windows. A senior official from the State Department speaking on condition of anonymity told the AP yesterday that "at this point, we believe the embassy compound itself remains secure." Deborah Jones, the US ambassador to Libya, backs these assertions up on Twitter, noting the "compound is now being safeguarded and has not been ransacked," though she notes she "cannot say definitively since [I'm] not there." (More Libya stories.)

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