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Libyan militant leader warns U.S. against interference

27 May 2014 22:51 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. The leader of Libya's Ansar al-sharia militant group in Benghazi warned the United States on Tuesday against interfering in the country's crisis or face worse than their conflicts in Somalia, Iraq, or Afghanistan, APA reports quoting Reuters.

Ansar al-Sharia is listed as a foreign terrorist organisation by Washington and it was accused of orchestrating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died.

Mohamed Zahawi, head of the Benghazi brigade of Ansar al-Sharia, accused the U.S. government of backing renegade former general Khalifa Haftar, who has begun a self-declared campaign to purge Libya of Islamist militants.

"We remind America, if they intervene, of their defeats in Afganistan, Iraq and Somalia, because they would face in Libya something much worse," he said in a statement. "It was America who urged Haftar to turn the country towards war and bloodshed."