international intrigue

Kidnapped Libyan Prime Minister Is Released Unharmed

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan (C) arrives at the government headquarters in Tripoli on October 10, 2013 shortly after he was freed from the captivity of militiamen who had held him for several hours. Gunmen seized Zeidan from a hotel, where he resides, in the Libyan capital and held him for several hours before he was freed, in the latest sign of Libya's lawlessness since Moamer Kadhafi was toppled in 2011.
Ali Zeidan, post-kidnapping. Photo: MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images

A few hours after being kidnapped by militants from the Tripoli hotel where he lives — retaliation for the Libyan government secretly condoning U.S. raids on its soil — Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan was released unscathed. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the “semiautonomous militias” who serve as the “government’s primary police and security force” can readily kidnap the prime minister — or worse — whenever the mood strikes. In a more general sense, the bad news is that Libya is, as the Times puts it, “sliding toward anarchy.”

Kidnapped Libyan Prime Minister Released