By Vivienne Walt, Time Magazine, April 23, 2013

A car exploded outside the French embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli Tuesday morning in what was likely a planned attack. No group has claimed responsibility for the explosion, which wounded two French security guards and damaged part of the embassy’s compound. In a statement, French President Franςois Hollande demanded a swift investigation: “France expects the Libyan authorities to shed the fullest light on this unacceptable act, so that the perpetrators are identified and brought to justice.”

Certain things stood out as notable in Tuesday’s blast — number one being that no one was killed. And it went off at 7 a.m., before Libyans were up, and hours before the customary line for visa-seekers usually starts forming outside the embassy.

Scrutiny now falls on militant Islamist groups active in Libya who are furious about France’s war against their comrades in Mali and the Sahel [.....]

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Car Explodes Outside French Embassy in Libya
By David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, April 23/24, 2013

A car bomb destroyed about half of the French Embassy in Libya early Tuesday morning, officials said, in the most significant attack against a Western interest in the country since the killing last September of the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens [....] The attack was a new blow to the transitional government’s hopes to established an improved sense of public security after the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi nearly two years ago. It was the largest blast in Tripoli since the end of his rule, one of the largest in a string of attacks on diplomatic missions, and the first major one in the capital [....]