Anti-militia protests highlight weakness of Libyan leadership

BENGHAZI, Libya — Residents of Libya’s second-largest city warned on Saturday of a “revolution” to get rid of armed militias and Islamic extremists after protests spurred in part by the killing of the U.S. ambassador left four dead in an unprecedented eruption of public frustration.

In a sign of how weak the country’s post-Moammar Gadhafi leadership remains, authorities tried to stem popular anger, pleading that some of the militias are needed to keep the country safe since the police and army are incapable of doing so.

A mass protest Friday against militias against the compounds of several armed groups in Benghazi lasted into early Saturday, as thousands stormed the headquarters of Ansar al-Shariah, an Islamic extremist group suspected in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate.

They drove out the Ansar gunmen and set fire to cars in the compound — once a major base for Gadhafi’s feared security forces — and then moved onto the base of a second Islamist militia, the Rafallah Sahati Brigade. Brigade fighters opened fire to keep the protesters at bay.

The state news agency said four protesters were killed and 70 injured in the overnight violence.

There were no new protests on Saturday, but the city of 1 million in eastern Libya was brimming with anger, rumors and conspiracy theories.

The bodies of six soldiers were found in the morning dumped on the outskirts of the city, shot through the forehead and their hands cuffed, state TV reported. An army colonel was reported missing, feared kidnapped.

Some militiamen bitterly accused Gadhafi loyalists of fueling the protests. Some media reports accused militiamen of taking revenge on Gadhafi-era veterans in the military, while military spokesman Ali al-Shakhli blamed Gadhafi loyalists.

Since Gadhafi’s ouster and death around a year ago, a series of interim leaders have struggled to build the state from scratch and bring order to a country that was eviscerated under his 42-year regime, with security forces and the military intentionally kept weak and government institutions hollowed of authority.