Jihadis throw pool party at US embassy compound in Libya
The Islamist faction Libyan Dawn claims to have 'secured' the US diplomatic compound
It was, by all appearances, a jihadist pool party - staged at an abandoned American diplomatic compound in the Libyan capital.
In video footage posted online on Sunday, a group of laughing, whooping men identified as members of an Islamist-linked group - some in black paramilitary-appearing outfits, some in summertime civilian wear - clowned, posed for the camera and did swan dives off a second-floor balcony into a swimming pool said to be in an annex of the US embassy in Tripoli, which was evacuated last month amid heavy fighting.
The images were emblematic of Libya in free fall, with the oil-rich North African nation spiralling into all-out civil war more than three years after the toppling of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The US ambassador to Libya, Deborah Jones, who has been overseeing American diplomatic activity from Malta, said on Twitter that the footage appeared to have been shot in a residential compound at the embassy.
A commander for an Islamist faction called Libyan Dawn said on Sunday that the militia had "secured" the residential annex. It is not clear when the video was shot.
The American diplomatic staff was spirited out of Tripoli after fighting around the international airport came too close to the embassy grounds.
The US State Department said at the time that the closing of the US embassy was a suspension of an American diplomatic presence rather than an end. Most other diplomatic installations in Tripoli have also been closed.