He said the assailants entered the hotel and fired randomly at the staff in the lobby. Reports about the attack itself were conflicting and it was not immediately possible to reconcile the different accounts.Ī hotel staffer initially said that five masked gunmen stormed the Corinthia after security guards at the hotel's gate tried to stop them. Spokesman Amr Baiou told reporters al-Hassi was unharmed. The militia-backed government in Tripoli said the target of the attack was Prime Minister Omar al-Hassi. The post-Gadhafi transition has collapsed, with two rival governments and parliaments - each backed by different militias - effectively ruling in the country's eastern and western regions. Since Gadhafi's ouster, Libya has been torn among competing militias and tribes vying for power. Two commercial landmark towers behind the hotel were evacuated out of security concerns, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media. It was not clear if the two assailants were the only ones involved in the attack.Īs the standoff developed, a security official said the gunmen had taken hostages, though he had no further details. He said an investigation was underway.Įarlier in the day, Mahmoud Hamza, commander of the so-called Special Deterrent Force, told private satellite television station al-Nabaa that five foreigners were killed, without elaborating, but al-Naas later revised the casualty toll. "The operation is over," al-Naas said but added that the streets around Corinthia remained closed. Ten people were also wounded in the attack, including security guards and guests. Libya's security forces responded and after several hours of a standoff, the attackers threw a grenade at the security forces, killing themselves and a security guard.
The attack started in the morning hours and included a car bombing, said Essam al-Naas, a spokesman for a Tripoli security agency.
The State Department said it was looking into reports of an American casualty in Tuesday's attack. The attack on the Corinthia Hotel, which sits along the Mediterranean Sea, underscores the lawlessness that this North African country descended into following the 2011 ouster and killing of dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the Libyan capital of Tripoli on Tuesday, killing four foreigners and five guards, and triggering an hours-long standoff that ended when two assailants set off a grenade that killed them, officials said.