British PM on surprise visit to Libya

British Prime Minister David Cameron made a surprise visit to Tripoli on Thursday for talks centred on security, just days after his government, which played a key role in Libya's revolution, warned of threats to its embassy. He flew into Tripoli in the morning before his entourage was ringed by security, then headed to a police academy for a ceremony to mark the promotion of officers, accompanied by Libyan Interior Minister Ashur Shwayel. "I will never forget the scenes I saw in Tripoli and (the eastern city of) Benghazi," Cameron said soon after arriving, in reference to the 2011 revolution that toppled Colonel Moamer Kadhafi. "The British people want to stand with you and help you deliver the greater security that Libya needs," the premier was quoted by the BBC as saying.  "So we have offered training and support from our police and our military. We look forward to working together in the years ahead." A Libyan official told AFP security cooperation would top Cameron's agenda during his talks in Tripoli.Downing Street said on Twitter that the prime minister travelled to the North African country "to discuss how the UK can continue to help build a strong, prosperous, democratic" Libya. The British embassy in Tripoli tweeted that Cameron was in Libya "to reiterate UK support for Libya's transition." On January 24, Britain urged its nationals to leave Benghazi immediately because of a "specific and imminent threat to Westerners" in the city on Libya's east coast.  Several other Western nations followed London's lead and advised their citizens to pull out. That sparked anger from Libya, which said the threat had been exaggerated and that there was "no new intelligence" to justify such concerns in the city that was the cradle of the uprising against Kadhafi. The alert came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned of the challenge posed by rising militancy following the Arab Spring, as she testified before Congress about September's bloody attack on the US mission in Benghazi. US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other people were killed when dozens of heavily armed Al-Qaeda-linked militants overran the compound and a nearby CIA-run annex.Britain had closed its mission in Benghazi around the same time and updated its official advice to warn against travelling there and indeed to most of Libya. On Monday, Britain said it had also identified a "potential threat" to its embassy in Tripoli. The Foreign Office, which already warns against "all but essential travel" to the Libyan capital, said its travel advice remained unchanged. Cameron paid a visit to Algeria on Wednesday to strike a new security partnership between the two countries, little more than two weeks after a deadly hostage crisis at a Sahara gas plant in that country. His spokeswoman said before his departure that Cameron would seek a partnership with Algeria on tackling extremism, reflecting growing concern in London about unrest in North Africa, and in Mali. The premier was accompanied by his national security adviser and a trade envoy, Downing Street said, while British reports said the head of foreign intelligence service MI6 was also on the trip. Six Britons are believed to have been among 37 foreign hostages killed when gunmen stormed the Sahara gas plant and the Algerian army launched a military assault in response. One Algerian and 29 gunmen were also killed. Cameron is in the region en route to Liberia, where he will co-chair an international development conference on Friday.