Gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the libyan capital of Tripoli on Tuesday, killing four foreigners and five guards, and triggering hours-long standoff that ended when two assailants set off a grenade that killed them, officials said. The attack on the Corinthia Hotel underscores the lawlessness that this North African country descended into following the 2011 ouster and killing of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The State Department said it was looking into reports of an American casualty in Tuesday’s attack.
The attack started on Tuesday morning and included a car bombing, said Essam al-Naas, a spokesman for a Tripoli security agency. libya’s security forces responded and after several hours of a standoff, the attackers threw a grenade at the security forces, 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 Corinthia remained closed. He said an investigation was underway. As the standoff developed, a security official said the gunmen had taken hostages, though he had no further details. Two commercial landmark towers behind the hotel were evacuated out of security concerns, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to media.
Reports about the attack itself were conflicting and it was not immediately possible to reconcile the different accounts. A hotel staffer initially said that five masked gunmen stormed the Corinthia after security guards at the hotel’s gate tried to stop them. He said the assailants entered the hotel and fired randomly at the staff in the lobby.
The staffer said that the gunmen fired in his direction when he opened his door to look out. He said he joined the rest of the staff and foreign guests fleeing out the hotel’s back doors into the parking lot. When they got there, the staffer said a car bomb exploded in the parking lot, only a hundred metres away. He said this came after a protection force entered the lobby and opened fire on the attackers. He said two guards were immediately killed. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared being targeted later by militants.
The car bomb left at least five cars in the parking lot burned and damaged some windows in the hotel’s facade, he said. The hotel had Italian, British and Turkish guests but was largely empty at the time of the attack, the staffer added. He said al-Hassi usually resides at the hotel, but was not there on Tuesday. Al-Hassi’s security guards also weren’t there, he said.