http://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-idUSKCN0VS17U
Fri Feb 19, 2016
U.S. aircraft hit Islamic State militants in Libya, more than 40 dead
TRIPOLI | BY AHMED ELUMAMI AND AIDAN LEWIS
U.S. warplanes carried out air strikes against Islamic State-linked militants in western Libya on Friday, killing as many as 40 people in an operation targeting a suspect linked to two deadly attacks last year in neighbouring Tunisia.
It was the second U.S. air strike in three months against Islamic State in Libya, where the hardline Islamist militants have exploited years of chaos following Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 overthrow to build up a presence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
The mayor of the Libyan city of Sabratha, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters the planes struck at 3:30 a.m. (0130 GMT), hitting a building in the city's Qasr Talil district where foreign workers were living.
He said 41 people had been killed and six wounded. The death toll could not immediately be confirmed with other officials.
Tunisian security sources have said they believe Tunisian Islamic State fighters have been trained in camps near Sabratha, which is close to the Tunisian border.
A U.S. military officer said among those targeted in the air strikes was senior Tunisian operative, Noureddine Chouchane, believed to be connected to the attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Souse beach resort which killed dozens of people.
Officials have said those two attacks, both claimed by Islamic State, were carried out by gunmen who trained in Libya.
"We are assessing the results of the operation," said Col. Mark Cheadle, spokesman for the Pentagon's Africa Command.
Thwadi, the Sabratha mayor, said officials visited the site of the strike and found weapons in the building. Some Tunisians, a Jordanian and two women were among the dead, he said, and several Tunisians who had recently arrived in Sabratha were among survivors. He gave no further details.
Since Gaddafi was overthrown five years ago, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments each backed by competing factions of former rebel brigades.
As Islamic State has expanded in the north African country, taking over the city of Sirte and attacking oil ports, calls have increased for a swift Western response to stop the group establishing itself outside its territory in Iraq and Syria.
Western officials and diplomats have said air strikes and special forces operations are possible as well as an Italian-led "security stabilisation" plan of training and advising.
U.S. and European officials insist Libyans must invite help through a united government, but say they may still carry out unilateral action if needed.
Last November the United States said it carried out an air strike on Libya's Derna to target Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, an Iraqi commander in Islamic State.
(Additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Washington; Writing by Aidan Lewis and Dominic Evans; Editing Patrick Markey and Alison Williams)
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Officials: US Warplanes Strike IS Facility in Libya
By ROBERT BURNS, AP NATIONAL SECURITY WRITER
WASHINGTON — Feb 19, 2016, 7:50 AM ET
American warplanes struck multiple targets in Libya overnight, hitting an Islamic State training camp and a senior extremist leader, U.S. defense officials said Friday.
One official described the strikes as being carried out "against an ISIL training camp" and said the attack near Sabratha, Libya, not far from the Tunisian border, "likely killed ISIL operative Noureddine Chouchane," who is believed to be a Tunisian.
The U.S. officials spoke on grounds of anonymity because they weren't authorized to be publicly identified discussing a military operation not yet formally announced.
President Barack Obama earlier this year directed his national security team to bolster counterterrorism efforts in Libya while also pursuing diplomatic possibilities for solving its political crisis and forming a government of national unity. While the Islamic State has emerged in other places, including Afghanistan, Libya is seen as its key focus outside of Syria and Iraq.
The U.S. military has been closely monitoring Islamic State movements in Libya, and small teams of U.S. military personnel have moved in and out of the country over a period of months. British, French and Italian special forces also have been in Libya helping with aerial surveillance, mapping and intelligence gathering in several cities, including Benghazi in the east and Zintan in the west, according to two Libyan military officials who are coordinating with them. The Libyan officials spoke on condition of anonymity recently with The Associated Press on this matter because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
U.S. officials predicted early this month that it would be weeks or longer before U.S. special forces would be sent, citing the need for more consultations with European allies. Additional intelligence would help refine targets for any sort of military strikes, but surveillance drones are in high demand elsewhere, including in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Adding to the concern in Washington and Europe is evidence that the number of Islamic State fighters in Libya is increasing - now believed to be up from about 2,000 to 5,000 - even as the group's numbers in Syria and Iraq are shrinking under more unrelenting U.S. and coalition airstrikes.
Obama discussed the situation when asked during a news conference Wednesday at the closing of a summit in California where he hosted leaders of several nation members of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) group.
"With respect to Libya," he said, "I have been clear from the outset that we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way that we went after al Qaida wherever they appeared."
"We will continue to take actions where we've got a clear operation and a clear target in mind," the president said. "And we are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in, in Libya, we take them. At the same time, we're working diligently with the United Nations to try to get a government in place in Libya. And that's been a problem." "The tragedy of Libya over the last several years is Libya has a relatively small population and a lot of oil wealth and could be really successful," he said. "They are divided by tribal lines and ethnic lines, power plays."
"There is now, I think, a recognition on the part of a broad middle among their political leadership that it makes sense to unify so that there is just some semblance of a state there, but extremes on either side are still making it difficult for that state to cohere," Obama told reporters.
Tunisia, Libya's neighbor which shares nearly 500 kilometers of border, has been worried for weeks about what they understood to be an "imminent" strike by the coalition. Tunisia fears "terrorists",'' arms traffickers and a flux of refugees onto its territory, and recently built nearly a 200-kilometer wall of sand and trenches to fortify its border. Nearly a million Libyans crossed the border into Tunisia during the 2011 uprising against Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi had asked that Tunisia be consulted before any decision to strike.
In a recent interview with AP, Prime Minister Habib Essid said the IS group has stretched its tentacles to Sabrata.
Tunisians make up the largest number of IS foreign fighters — an estimated 5,000 in Syria, Iraq and Libya, according to Tunisian officials. Some reportedly joined Libya from Syria, others by crossing the Tunisian border
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Editors: This story has been changed to correct time element with respect to Obama's order to National Security Council regarding Libya.
Received on Fri Feb 19 2016 - 07:59:39 EST