Benghazi tries to escape its ghosts: Bilal Bettamer is a 23-year-old student who wants to save Benghazi from tho... http://bit.ly/TPKIhJ
Benghazi tries to escape its ghosts, past and present
CNN Benghazi tries to escape its ghosts, past and present
updated 11:13 AM EST, Tue January 29, 2013
Children in Benghazi hold up placards reading "No to terrorism" (R) and "yes for stability and security" on January 15.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Law graduate Bilal Bettamer is trying to make Benghazi a safer, prosperous place
- Threats may drive the 23-year-old civil activist from this troubled Libyan city
- Assassinations, bombings and kidnappings keep progress at bay
- The ghost of Moammar Gadhafi still hangs over Benghazi and rest of Libya
(CNN) -- Bilal Bettamer is a 23-year-old student who wants to save Benghazi from those he calls "extremely dangerous people." But his campaign against the criminal and extremist groups that plague the city has put his life at risk, and he says that if he receives more threats, he will have to leave Libya.
Libya can't afford to lose the likes of Bettamer. A law graduate and civil activist, he helped organize the protest against jihadist groups after the attack on the U.S. Consulate there in September, in which four Americans were killed.
That protest led to the expulsion from Benghazi of the militant Ansar al-Sharia group -- whose members were suspected of involvement in the attack -- and other jihadists from the city.
A month later, Bettamer says, the extremists were back in Benghazi with a vengeance. He estimates there are maybe 100 of them at large. And last week, several European governments, as well as Canada and Australia, urged their citizens to leave this eastern Libyan city immediately, with Britain speaking of an "imminent threat."
One Libyan source with contacts in Western intelligence circles says the warning followed an intercepted communication that revealed a specific and concrete plan to attack British interests.
