Chanting protesters burn American embassy in Libya

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 9

Chanting protesters burn American embassy in Libya

International

NZPA-Reuter Washington F" 0 thousand demonstrators chanting support for the Iranian leader. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, set fire to the United States Embassy in the Libyan capital of Tripoli yesterday, the State Department has said.

All 12 American diplomats and nine other people had escaped through a side door, a spokesman said. The United States has protected to Libya in the strongest possible terms about its “inadequate and unresponsive actions” to protect the embassy, the Modding Carter, said. The department said that! uniformed Libyan military officers were spotted in the front ranks of the demon-! st ration and a large number of uniformed “militia” who work in the Libyan oilfields also took part. A United States Diplomat who returned to the embassy several hours later reported that the fire had gutted the ground floor and partly damaged the second floor, but sensitive documents and equipment had not been interfered with. The attack occurred less than two weeks after the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, was sack-; ed by a mob of people who thought the United States was involved in the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The Libyan news agency,; Jana, said the demonstrators in Tripoli were students ex-

pressing support for the Iranian students holding 50 Americans hostage in Teheran and demanding thej extradition of the deposed: Shah from the United States.! It said the students broke; into the embassy and burned an American flag and effigies of the Shah and President Carter. Several students were in-! jured by “toxic gases” used! by embassy personnel, the •agency said. The State Department! 'spokesman stopped short of! jcharging Libya with respon-; Isibility for the incident, but: said spontaneous demonstrations were not known to occur there. He added that soon after the protestors arrived at the! embassy they were joined by a loud-speaker truck. He also said that Libyan authorities had ignored an embassy request the day before to increase protection beyond the one policeman stationed outside and were extremely slow to respond when the demonstrators attacked. The spokesman urged American citizens to avoid travelling to Libya and said that United States offiicials were discussing with) private firms and individuals ! ways of ensuring the safety! of the 2500 American citi- 1

zens in the North African country. No Marine guards are stationed at the embassy because it has a comparatively small American presence. The two countries have full diplomatic relations but for some years have not had ambassadors in each other’s capital. The Libyan leader, Muammar Gadaffi, one of the most outspoken Arab critics of the United States, bas urged the Iranian students to release the hostages held in Teheran but has also repeatedly expressed his solidarity with the Iranian revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeiny. Libya supplies the United ;States with about 10 per cent of its oil imports. United States purchases of Libyan oil this year are expected to total S6OOOM. The State Department said that 12 of 26 official American dependents left Libya a few days ago and the remaining 14 were scheduled to leave today. They were not in the embassy at the time. The departure of the dependents was part of a general American security precaution in several Muslim countries after the United States Embassy in Pakistan was burned down.