.
Not only Britain, also Germany and The Netherlands send out warnings for their nationals to leave Benghazi immediately because of specific threats.
The scare of the Algerian hostage taking is spreading to nearby nations.
All Westerners Urged to Leave Benghazi over Imminent Threat
(BBC News) – Britons should leave the Libyan city of Benghazi immediately in response to a “specific, imminent threat” to Westerners, the Foreign Office says. The British Embassy in Tripoli has been in contact with a “small number” of British nationals whose details it had.
Germany and The Netherlands have also urged their citizens to leave Benghazi.
But Libya’s deputy interior minister Abdullah Massoud insisted the security problems in Benghazi did not warrant such a response. He told the BBC the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Libya had not been informed about the change in travel advice for British nationals.
The minister added he would be contacting the Foreign Office for further clarification and insisted such actions added to instability in the region.
‘Credible and serious’
The UK Foreign Office has been advising against travel to Benghazi and most parts of Libya since September. In its updated travel advice, the Foreign Office said that after the recent French military intervention in Mali against Islamic extremists, there was the possibility of retaliatory attacks against Western interests in the region.
“This advice has been reviewed and reissued with amendments to the Travel Summary (threat to Westerners in Benghazi). The overall level of the advice has not changed. We advise against all but essential travel to Zuwara, Az Zawiya, Tripoli, al Khums, Zlitan and Misrata, and the coastal towns from Ras Lanuf to the Egyptian Border, with the exception of Benghazi; we advise against all travel to all other areas of Libya, including Benghazi.”
There is also the threat of kidnapping in Libya.
A lot of threats from Islamic extremists
(Reuters) – Benghazi has been the scene of power struggles between various armed Islamist factions. U.S. intelligence officials say Islamist militants with ties to al Qaeda affiliates were most likely involved in the deadly September 11 assault on the U.S. mission in the city, Libya’s second biggest.
Libya, whose vast desert borders are hard to police, fears that France’s military operation in Mali could fan Islamist flames at home, and Libya’s foreign minister called for United Nations peacekeepers to be deployed in Mali to prevent uprooted fighters destabilizing countries nearby.
Security experts said the European warnings were probably in response to threats from groups angered by the French operation in Mali and inspired by the attack at In Amenas. One European national security official said “a lot of folks” were doing “a lot of threatening”.
