Free Republic

WASHINGTON — A senior State Department official is confirming the death of one U.S. citizen in Tuesday's attack on a Libyan hotel. The official isn't providing any further details. Libyan officials said four foreigners and five guards were killed Tuesday after gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. The ensuring standoff ended when two assailants set off a grenade that killed them, officials said. The attack on the Corinthia Hotel, which sits along the Mediterranean Sea, started in the morning hours and included a car bombing, said Essam al-Naas, a spokesman for a Tripoli security agency.

Israel's military intelligence chief on Friday blamed al-Qaeda for the hotel bombings that killed at least 30 people, mostly Israeli tourists and Egyptian workers, in Sinai. As rescue workers rooted through the wreckage of the Hilton hotel in Taba looking for more bodies believed to be buried in the rubble, Major General Aharon Zeevi-Farkash told an emergency session of Ariel Sharon's Cabinet that the main attack, a car bomb, bore all the hallmarks of groups linked to al-Qaeda. The blast sheared off 10 floors on one side of the building late on Thursday, causing a similar outrage to bombings against...