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US airstrikes target Islamic State militants in Libya US airstrikes target Islamic State militants in Libya
(35 minutes later)
US warplanes have carried out airstrikes in the western Libyan city of Sabratha, where Islamic State militants operate, killing as many as 40 people. US warplanes have carried out airstrikes on an Islamic State base in western Libya, targeting a leader linked to last year’s Sousse beach massacre in Tunisia.
A US military spokesman said Friday morning’s attacks targeted a senior Tunisian militant linked to attacks in Tunisia last year. A US military spokesman told Reuters that senior Isis operative Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian, was among those targeted. Up to 30 Isis recruits died, a western official told the New York Times.
Sabratha’s mayor, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters the planes struck at 3.30am (1.30am GMT), hitting a building in the Qasr Talil district in which 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. Local reports and photographs show pulverised buildings at a compound close to al-Ajaylat, outside Sabratha, 40 miles west of Tripoli. The mayor of Sabratha said 41 people had died and six had been wounded.
Tunisian security sources have said they believe Tunisian Isis fighters have been trained in camps near Sabratha, which is close to the Tunisian border. Earlier this week Barack Obama said the US “will go after Isis wherever it appears, the same way that we went after al-Qaida wherever they appeared”.
US and British special forces have been deployed in Libya in recent weeks, with drones and intense reconnaissance by American, British and French warplanes.
Two major attacks in Tunisia last year claimed by Isis – one on a Sousse resort hotel and another on a Tunis museum – were carried out by gunmen who officials said had trained in Libya.Two major attacks in Tunisia last year claimed by Isis – one on a Sousse resort hotel and another on a Tunis museum – were carried out by gunmen who officials said had trained in Libya.
The New York Times earlier reported that Friday’s airstrikes targeted a senior Tunisian operative, Noureddine Chouchane, who was connected to both of last year’s attacks. Western leaders are concerned that the chaos of a civil war between the elected government in Tobruk and a rival Islamist-led administration in Tripoli has allowed Isis to grow across the country.
The mayor said officials visited the site of the strike and found weapons in the building, but he did not give any further details. Some Tunisians, a Jordanian and two women were among the dead, he said. Unidentified aircraft have bombed other Isis bases in the eastern Libyan towns of Sirte and Derna in recent days, with Human Rights Watch saying a hospital was struck in the Derna raids.
Several Tunisians who had recently arrived in Sabratha were among survivors. Al-Ajaylat is cluster of compounds opening out onto the Sahara, and has been the focus of US attention for several months. It sits at a gap between the frontline of Libya Dawn militias who hold the northern coast and pro-government units deployed to the south.
Since the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011, the north African country has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments each backed by competing factions of former rebel brigades. In December, pictures were released of US special forces with dune buggies at al-Wattiya, a government-controlled desert airbase 30 miles south of the Isis compound. Reports from the area claimed the American unit was mounting surveillance on the compound that has now been struck.
As Islamic State has expanded in Libya, taking over the city of Sirte and attacking oil ports, calls have increased for a swift western response to stop the group establishing a base outside its Iraq and Syria territory. The Pentagon said in January that US special forces were in Libya seeking to “partner” local militias to tackle Isis, and last week UK foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood revealed RAF warplanes are now flying missions over Libya.
Western officials and diplomats have said airstrikes and special forces operations are possible, as well as an Italian-led “security stabilisation” plan of training and advising. Sabratha has long been home to Islamist militants. In January 2014 local jihadis were blamed for the beachfront murder of British oil worker Mark De Salis and his girlfriend from New Zealand, Lynn Howie, at the nearby Melittah gas complex. Many of those militants have now gravitated to Isis.
US and European officials insist Libyans must invite help through a united government, but say they may still carry out unilateral action if needed. In recent weeks Isis has been building up strength around the town, launching attacks on local militias at nearby Surman on the coastal highway.
Last November the US said it carried out an airstrike in Derna, Libya, to target Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi, an Iraqi Isis commander. US warplanes previously struck an Isis base in Derna in November, and an al-Qaida gathering at Ajdabiya in eastern Libya in June.
Washington fears that, left unchecked, Isis will grow in Libya as it has in Iraq and Syria, forming a hub from which it can launch attacks across north Africa.
Western powers have so far backed United Nations efforts to mediate an end to Libya’s civil war, in the hope that a unity government can persuade the country’s fractious militias to turn their guns on the militants.
But the UN’s unity government plan was rejected by the Tobruk parliament on Monday, and western military planners fear that delaying action against Isis will see it capture and destroy Libya’s strategically vital oil ports. The militant group launched an offensive against Ras Lanuf, the country’s largest refinery, earlier this year setting storage tanks ablaze.