British and Commonwealth War Graves desecrated in Libya

Video footage has been released by people believed to be from an Islamist militia showing graves in a British and Commonwealth Military Cemetery being systematically desecrated by armed thugs.  One of the gang also climbed the Cenotaph and began smashing the cross on it with a mallet.

Having foreign war graves on your soil is one of the residues of Empire, although in this case Libya had not been a British colony - it belonged to Italy.  The soldiers whose remains are buried in the Benghazi Military Cemetery died fighting Rommel's Africa Corps.  This was apparently of no concern to the vandals, whose mission appears to have been some form of revenge for the burning of copies of the Koran by the American military in Afghanistan.