* Rocket-propelled grenade fired at vehicle
* British ambassador was in the convoy
* Two bodyguards hurt: embassy spokeswoman
* Benghazi has seen spate of attacks on foreigners
(Updates with British ambassador in convoy)
BENGHAZI, Libya, June 11 (Reuters) - A convoy carrying
Britain's ambassador to Libya was hit by a rocket-propelled
grenade on Monday, injuring two of his bodyguards in the most
serious of a spate of assaults on foreign targets.
The attackers ambushed the ambassador's convoy metres
(yards) from the consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi,
firing the weapon at the front of one of the vehicles and
blowing out the windscreen, local security officials said.
It was the fourth attack in three months on a foreign
mission in the city, the birth-place of the revolt which last
year overthrew Muammar Gaddafi. Some analysts say the violence
is the work of Islamist militants exploiting the security vacuum
left after Gaddafi's fall.
"A convoy carrying the British ambassador to Libya was
involved in a serious incident," said a spokeswoman for the
British embassy in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
"Two close protection officers were injured in the attack
but all other staff are safe and uninjured ... We are working
with the Libyan authorities to establish who was responsible for
the attack."
A Reuters reporter at the scene of the attack, in Benghazi's
al-Rabha neighbourhood, said police had cordoned off the area
with waist-high concrete blocks. A damaged but still intact car
windscreen could be seen lying on the ground, along with
fragments of glass.
Accounts from local security officials, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said the ambassador and his convoy had
visited a nearby restaurant for lunch and were returning to the
consulate when the attackers struck.
A source from the government's high security committee said
the rocket-propelled grenade was fired at the front of the
vehicle. It was not immediately clear if the ambassador, Dominic
Asquith, was in the car which was hit.
Another Libyan security official described one occupant of
the convoy as being injured in the shoulder. "There was a lot of
blood in the car that took him to hospital," said the official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
However, the high security committee source said: "The
wounds are minor, it's not serious."
The fact that the casualties were not worse suggested that
the British diplomats were using armoured vehicles, common
practice for Western missions in Libya.
VIOLENCE HOT SPOT
Benghazi was where the uprising broke out last year which
later ended Gaddafi's 42-year rule, but it is now a hot spot for
violence, with arms readily available and state security forces
struggling to assert their authority.
Monday's attack happened five days after an explosive device
was dropped from a passing car outside the offices of the U.S.
diplomatic mission in Benghazi. The blast that followed slightly
damaged the gate in front of the building.
On May 22, a rocket-propelled grenade hit the offices of the
International Committee of the Red Cross in the city, blasting a
small hole in the building but causing no casualties.
A month earlier in Benghazi, a bomb was thrown at a convoy
carrying Ian Martin, the head of the United Nations mission in
Libya. No one was hurt.
Security experts say the area around the city is host to a
number of Islamist militant groups who oppose any Western
presence in Muslim countries.
Under Gaddafi, eastern Libya was home to an Islamist
insurgency which tried to end his rule in the 1990s and later
established loose ties with al Qaeda. Most of that generation of
Libyan insurgents though, has since renounced violence.
The British ambassador has experience of working in a
hostile environment. He served in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad,
after the 2003 U.S. invasion unleashed an insurgency there.
The attacks on their diplomatic missions will be jarring for
London and Washington because they have been widely feted in
Libya for leading, along with France, the air assault that
helped force out Gaddafi last year.
The worst case scenario for Western governments is that the
spate of attacks could be the start of an Iraq-style insurgency
by Islamist militants. That could have an impact on oil exports
because the energy sector depends on foreign workers.
However, security analysts say an insurgency is unlikely to
gain the kind of momentum it did in Iraq, mainly because Western
states have no military presence on the ground in Libya.
(Additional reporting by Ali Shuaib and Marie-Louise Gumuchian
in Tripoli and Stephen Addison in London; Writing by Christian
Lowe; Editing by Jon Hemming)