Missiles and mortar rounds were fired into a crowd of demonstrators in central Benghazi's al-Keesh Square, killing six and injuring at least 35. The pro-secular protest was called to oppose proposals, now being heard in the UN-brokered peace dialogue [7], for a new unity government that would include leaders of the Islamist factions that now control Tripoli. (BBC News [8], Libya Herald [9], Oct. 24) One of the protesters, 32-year-old architect Salwa, told Middle East Eye [10]: "We went out today to tell [head of the UN Support Mission in Libya, Bernadino] Leon that he does not have the right to propose that terrorists and leaders of militias should be part of a government for Libya, and we protested even though we knew there was a threat from ISIS, who claim that they are revolutionaries." She added: "But I did not expect their brutality to reach this level. They bombed areas where there were innocent people—women and children—who just wanted to try and have a say in the fate of their homeland."
It's a telling irony that the attack, which won typically sparse attention in the Western media, came the day after Hillary Clinton received an 11-hour grilling before Congress in hearings on the politically hyped "Benghazi scandal," to a media feeding-frenzy. (CNN [11])
