A car bomb rocked the French Embassy in Tripoli today, injuring two guards in what's presumed to be the first terrorist attack on a diplomatic outpost in the Libyan capital since the deposition of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. The blast was also the most major strike at a foreign government's compound since a cadre of assailants stormed the U.S. Consulate in September 2012 and killed four, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

Nobody has taken responsibility for the attack thus far, but the immediate suspect is hardline Islamists, according to the New York Times:

...Libyans immediately suspected militant Islamists angry over the French intervention in Mali, where French troops are supporting government efforts to oppose Islamic militants in the north of the country. The assault came a day after the French Parliament voted to extend the French military deployment there.

French troops in Mali is easy cannon fodder for militants who see France's involvement as nothing but an extension of its former colonialist rule over the African nation, which came to a close in 1960.

[Image via AP]