Benghazi bombing sends shockwaves through Libyan society

At noon today, the center of Benghazi was rocked by the explosion of a huge car bomb. The blast, adjacent to the city’s leading Al-Jala Hospital, killed at least three people while injuring at least 15 more. Needless to say, it’s more bad news for the deteriorating security situation in one of Libya’s most important cities. This is the first time that attackers have targeted a crowded area in daylight, clearly an attempt to inflict as many casualties as possible. Witnesses on the ground are reporting extensive damage to nearby buildings and cars.  

A video clip from the scene showed scenes of panic and devastation. This bombing is just the latest in a series of incidents that attest to the downhill spiral in Benghazi. The past two weeks have seen a systematic pattern of attacks on police stations around the city. All of the attacks have taken place at night, and none of them has caused casualties. But by targeting defence infrastructure, the assailants seem intent on creating and perpetuating a security vacuum.

It’s going to be very hard to figure out who is behind the attacks. Minister of the Interior Ashour Shuwail has said that it’s too early to make any conclusions about the perpetrators. His ministry has launched an investigation and deployed additional forces across Benghazi. Angry residents have already started pointing fingers at Islamist groups and mass demonstrations have started, promising to cleanse the city of terrorists.

A Facebook page for a group calling itself The Islamic Front for the Mujahideen of Derna claimed responsibility for the bombing and promised more attacks to come in Benghazi, Tripoli, and other cities around Libya. The Facebook page, which was created about two months ago, can’t be authenticated yet, and questions have been raised about spelling mistakes and stylistic irregularities in the text of the post that set it apart from other claims made by Islamist groups.

Noman Benotman, president of Quilliam Think Tank and an ex-Jihadist, dismissed the page as nonsensical and couldn’t be further from the style and tactics of Jihadist groups. Benotman seems to be certain that the page is fake. Some observers are suggesting that the authors of the text are trying to implicate jihadists — and if so, it certainly worked. Residents of Benghazi are entirely ready to blame the "holy warriors" for the latest atrocity.

Guma Attigha, a deputy of Mohammed Magarief, Libya’s acting head of state, announced that the government is setting up a special committee to oversee the security situation in Benghazi. Attigha scolded the minister of the interior, telling him to take his responsibilities seriously and admit failure in his efforts to bring the security situation under control. This is a clear hint that the leaders of the General National Council (GNC), Libya’s interim legislature, want to see the resignations of key officials in the wake of the Benghazi bombings.

Rami el-Obeidi, a well-respected security expert who served in a previous interim government, believes that the hospital bombing is not linked to the recent attacks on police stations, since it doesn’t fit the same pattern.

It will take Benghazi residents a while to come to terms with this latest attack. This is the first time that people in the city find themselves confronting a vicious terrorist attack on a hospital, targeted at people of the city, that was clearly designed to maim and kill as many as possible.

The explosion follows a period of chaos in the capital Tripoli. Over the past two weeks, armed groups have besieged government buildings in an attempt to pressure the GNC into passing the controversial Isolation Law. Many government institutions came to a virtual standstill. The blockade of some of the ministries was only lifted yesterday, after the GNC passed the law on Sunday, May 5. Needless to say, the fact that legislators essentially allowed themselves to be blackmailed into passing a flawed law that is likely to cause considerable problems for the country’s further political development does not bode well. These are dark days in Libya.

Mohamed Eljarh is the Libya blogger for Transitions. Read the rest of his posts here.