Benghazi's security chief powerless to check rise of Ansar al-Sharia militia

The black flag of the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia militia continued to fly over its base in central Benghazi yesterday, but the garrison was nervous, braced for reprisals after the killing of the US ambassador to Libya on Tuesday night. Many in Benghazi say Sharia helped the attack of the US consulate that killed four Americans.

At the gate of the militia's compound, a bearded, black-clad commander said the talk inside was of two US warships that had been deployed off the Libyan coast. "Everybody is talking about it. I know they are there."

He refused to give his name or allow journalists to enter. When asked about the death of the ambassador, Chris Stevens, he stopped the interview and slammed the gate shut.

Sharia has been blamed for recent attacks on Western targets, including Commonwealth war graves and a rocket attack on the British ambassador in June. The group was formed early in last year's uprising and did much of the early fighting that stabilised the frontline in March 2011 when Muammar Gaddafi's forces threatened to capture Benghazi.

Its main base is 160km away in Derna, known as the centre of Islamic conservatism in Libya. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed here to oppose Gaddafi in the 1990s. When it was crushed, some members fled to join Islamists in Afghanistan.

The man responsible for security in Benghazi is Fawzi Yunis Gaddafi, who is from the same tribe as Libya's former dictator but was jailed by the former regime for his political views. Chief of the Benghazi branch of the supreme security committee (SSC), the national military force, Yunis Gaddafi said Sharia sat apart from the security apparatus.

"There is the SSC, and [in Benghazi] there are other brigades that are not with the SSC. Ansar al-Sharia is separate," he said.