Monitoring Desk
TRIPOLI: US CIA head William Burns made a rare visit to Libya on Thursday, meeting Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah in Tripoli, Western Media reported.
US-Libya
According to the Associated Press it was a rare trip by a senior United States official to the African country, currently split between two rival groups. The Tripoli-based government said that CIA Director William Burns and Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah held meeting and discussed economic cooperation and security matters. The government also posted a hand-shaking image of the two on one of its social media pages.
However, the statement gave no hint as to when exactly the meeting between the two held. There was no immediate reaction from Washington about the visit of CIA head.
Burns’ trip followed the surprise extradition last month of an ex-Libyan intelligence officer accused of making the bomb that detonated on a commercial flight above Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all onboard and 11 persons on the ground.
Torn by civil war since a NATO-sponsored uprising against former ruler Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, Libya has for years been divided between rival governments in the west and east, each backed by numerous armed militias on the ground and international patrons.
