LIBYANS are becoming anxious. The bombing of the French embassy in Tripoli last month was the first time that terrorist violence had come to the capital. Now a car bomb in Benghazi appears to have upped the level of violence in that city. Since the Sept 1, 2012, murder of US ambassador Chris Stevens … at the US consulate in the city, violence there had settled back, if that is the expression, into a pattern of assassinations, largely of Qadhafi-era security officials and overnight attacks on police stations, causing few injuries. Sunday’s car bomb blast outside a Benghazi hospital, which killed at least three people, injured dozens and wrecked surrounding properties and vehicles, seems to be a … change in the tactics…. However … there are also conflicting reports of what really happened.

…Though the bombing has ratcheted up the tension in this east Libyan city, it also appears to be having another effect. The people of Benghazi, who chased one Salafist militia out of town, following the murder of the US ambassador, are once again furious at the continued presence of militiamen, not all of whom are the former revolutionary fighters they claim to be. The government is supposed to be absorbing most of these men into the police and army. But the process is proving painfully slow.

… Moreover in an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust ... rumours abound. The latest that has seized social media is that the United States is preparing to invade. That such a fanciful notion is given house room, demonstrates how jittery Libyans have become. … Premier Ali Zeidan has always tried to find consensus and balance the disparate regional and political interests at play…. Unfortunately this admirable approach is facing rising challenges from … forces that have no interest in seeing a … democratic Libya emerge…. Congressmen and the government that they put in place need to act with unity in the face of the deadly danger their country faces. —(May 15)