Foreign relations of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi 1984, Libyan refugees in London protested against the execution of two dissidents. Libyan diplomats shot at 11 people and killed Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman. The incident led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade. Two months later, Gaddafi asserted that he wanted his agents to assassinate dissident refugees, even if they were just on pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca—in August 1984, a Libyan plot in Mecca was thwarted by Saudi Arabian police. After the December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, which killed 19 and wounded around
Embassy of the United States, London have their residences there. The embassy "strenuously denied" the reports, and a spokesman for Buckingham Palace reported that no formal request had been made. Another possible option was Chelsea Barracks, for which the U.S. Embassy made an unsuccessful bid in February 2007. On October 8, 2008, the embassy announced a conditional agreement with the real estate developer Ballymore Group to purchase property for a new embassy site on the South Bank of the River Thames in the Nine Elms area of the London Borough of Wandsworth. The site lies within the Vauxhall/Nine Elms/Battersea Opportunity Area as set out in the