Lawless Libya: The story you didn't read

You may not have seen the following headline on the front page of any newspaper: ‘Terrorist killers rocket-bomb British envoy’s car’.

Nor have you read, in a prominent place, the following opening paragraph: ‘Britain’s envoy to Libya narrowly escaped death last night after Islamic militants launched a rocket-propelled grenade at his car. Two of his bodyguards were seriously injured.’

This seems strange to me. The story has all the elements that normally push news towards the front of the paper and the top of the page, and the head of the radio or TV bulletin. It involves severe violence, it is very simple, it has an important British connection, and at the centre of it is a prominent person.

The Ambassador, Sir Dominic Asquith, pictured above, is descended from one of our most famous Premiers and is a cousin of the actress Helena Bonham Carter. The attack in Benghazi came a few days after a bomb was thrown at the US mission in the same city. The Red Cross there has been attacked. And a delegation from the International Criminal Court has been more or less kidnapped, with what passes for a government in Libya bleating that it is ‘powerless to intervene’.

A few months ago, this newspaper reported the shameless desecration of a British Second World War cemetery in Libya, by people who knew exactly what they were doing and were happy to be filmed.

Here’s the problem. We ‘liberated’ Libya, and this lawless, failed state is now our responsibility. But, as we are preparing to ‘liberate’ Syria in the same way, we hide from ourselves that our interventions have made things worse than they were.

MailOnline: British ambassador to Libya escapes uninjured after his convoy is hit by rocket-propelled grenade