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WASHINGTON — Four American military personnel assigned to the United States Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, were detained Friday and released hours later after being held by the country’s Interior Ministry, American officials said.
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The four were believed to have been reviewing potential evacuation routes for diplomats when they were detained, according to initial reports received by officials in Washington. The place they were said to have been detained is not far from the main road to the Tunisian border from Tripoli.
After running into a problem at a checkpoint — many of which are run by local militias — they were detained and later moved to the Ministry of Interior, said administration officials who asked not to be identified because they were discussing internal reports.
The State Department confirmed the detention but provided no information on how it had happened.
“We are seeking to further ascertain the facts and ensure their release,” said Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman. “We are in touch with Libyan officials on this issue.”
Photographs of two American passports and embassy identity cards were later disseminated on Twitter. It was not known if the passports belonged to any of the four military personnel. The episode appears to have taken place in a town just southwest of the historic Roman ruins at Sabratha and about an hour’s drive from Tripoli, the capital. The area is not known for anti-Western extremists or other obvious threats. In part because it is a tourist area, the district around Sabratha skews relatively liberal and friendly to Westerners.
Since the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens on Sept. 11, 2012, employees of the American Embassy have operated with extraordinary caution.
But two years after the toppling of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, security remains tenuous even in and around Tripoli. Libya’s transitional government has not yet managed to assemble a credible national army or police force. Many families or clans around the country keep heavy weapons, as do autonomous local militias formed during and after the Libyan uprising.
Rigorous security rules preclude any movements outside the heavily fortified embassy compound without advance planning and an armed guard. The compound is locked at night, and no one is permitted to enter or exit.
Counterterrorism has become a central focus of the work there, and the compound brims with well-armed security officers.
Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Buffalo. Suliman Ali Zway contributed reporting from Tripoli, Libya, and Thom Shanker from Washington.
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