Libya - Grenade Hits British Convoy, One Injured

A British diplomatic convoy was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Libya's second city Benghazi on Monday, leaving one person injured in the most serious of a spate of assaults on foreign targets, local security officials said.

Some analysts have blamed the attacks in the eastern city on Islamist militants exploiting the security vacuum left after Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow in an uprising last year.

The convoy was hit about 300 metres (yards) from the British consulate office in Benghazi's al-Rabha neighbourhood. A Reuters reporter at the scene said police had cordoned off the area. A damaged but still intact car windscreen could be seen lying on the ground.

One Libyan security official told reporters the injured person was wounded in the shoulder. "There was a lot of blood in the car that took him to hospital," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A source from the government's high security committee said the rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the front of the vehicle, blowing out the windscreen. Many Western diplomats in Libya use armoured vehicles.

The injured man was one of the British security personnel, said the source. "The wounds are minor," he said. "He is now at the hospital. There is tight security at the hospital."

Benghazi was the cradle of the uprising last year which ended Gaddafi's 42-year rule, but is now a hot spot for violence, with arms readily available and state security forces struggling to assert their authority.

Security experts say the area around the city is host to a number of Islamist militant groups who oppose any Western presence in Muslim countries.