Tripoli: At least five foreigners and three guards were killed in hostage crisis on Tuesday when five unidentified gunmen donning bulletproof vests barged into Libya’s luxurious Corinthia Hotel and opened fire, reports stated.
According to reports, five foreignerrs and three guards have been killed as a car bomb exploded in the hotel’s parking lot burning five nearby hotels.
Mahmoud Hamza, commander of the so-called Special Deterrent Force, told private satellite television station al-Nabaa that the situation was “under control” Tuesday afternoon, though he couldn’t confirm the whereabouts of the gunmen, claimed Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the SITE Intel Group informed that the attack has been claimed by a group calling itself Islamic State’s “Tripoli Province”, in what appears to be in retaliation to the death of Libyan al Qaeda militant Abu Anas al Libi.
The five masked attackers fired randomly at the hotel staff in the lobby. On realising about the attack, the hotel staff and guests tried to flee out from the back door into the parking lot, PTI reported.
When they got there, he said a car bomb exploded in the parking lot, only a hundred metres away.
Abu Anas al-Liby, who was indicted in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was captured from Tripoli in October last year when US Navy SEALs ended a 15-year old manhunt for him.
The Libyan Qaeda militant, al-Liby, who was born Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai had a bounty worth $5 million on his head.
Liby was also on FBI’s Most Wanted List.
Al Libi, who died earlier this month in a US hospital, was reportedly suffering from an advanced Hepatitis C and had developed liver cancer since his capture, his son Mouin had told the CNN.
Though the US Department of Justice said in court that al Libi died due to complications arising out of his previous health conditions that suddenly worsened, his family held the US government responsible for his death.
