Islamist Militants Seize U.S. Embassy's Lodge In Libya

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 on 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. In a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy's residential annex, though she said she couldn't "say definitively" since she wasn't there.

"To my knowledge & per recent photos the US Embassy Tripoli chancery & compound is now being safeguarded and has not been ransacked," she wrote on Twitter. She did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate. State Department officials in Washington also declined to immediately comment.

Tripoli is witnessing one of its worst spasms of violence since Gadhafi's ouster. The militias, many of which originate from rebel forces that fought Gadhafi, became powerful players in post-war Libya, filling a void left by weak police and a shattered army.

Successive governments have put militias on their payroll in return for maintaining order, but rivalries over control and resources have led to fierce fighting among them and posed a constant challenge to the central government and a hoped-for transition to democracy.

Photo Credit: Dailymail UK