American Among Dead in Tripoli, Libya, Hotel Attack - East Idaho News
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American Among Dead in Tripoli, Libya, Hotel Attack

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Getty 012715 CorinthiaHotelTripoli?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1422378125712MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP/Getty Images(TRIPOLI, Libya) — Several gunmen wearing ski masks stormed the Corinthia Hotel, a hotel popular with western diplomats and journalists in Libya’s capitol, Tripoli, on Tuesday, taking a number of hostages and leaving at least eight people dead.

The U.S. State Department and a Libyan government source confirmed to ABC News that a U.S. citizen was among the dead.

The American fatality was identified as David Berry. Berry was an employee of Team Crucible, a U.S. security and training company based in Virginia.

In a statement Tuesday, Team Crucible said it “mourns this extraordinary loss.”

Security services told the AFP they managed to surround the gunman on the 23rd floor of the hotel, which is when the men then detonated their explosives.

An eyewitness described the harrowing attack to the BBC, saying, “I suddenly heard shots and saw people running towards me, and we all escaped from the back [of the hotel] through the underground garage. The hotel did a lockdown after that.”

Images purportedly showing the gunmen from the hotel’s surveillance video have shown up on social media, but there has been no official confirmation on who the attackers were.

A Twitter account affiliated with ISIS claimed responsibility, saying the attack on the Corinthia Hotel was in revenge for the death of a Libyan jihadist by the name of Abu Anas al Libi. Al Libi was linked to the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998.


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