European Knight
06-15-2015, 06:03 AM
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/14/africa/us-airstrike-libya-mokhtar-belmokhtar/
A U.S. plane carried out a strike inside Libya on Sunday, reportedly killing a key terror figure in North Africa, U.S. and Libyan officials said.
The target was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist fighter affiliated with al Qaeda in North Africa, a U.S. official told CNN.
The Libyan government said Belmokhtar was killed in the strike, something that U.S. officials have not confirmed.
Federal prosecutors in New York had charged the one-eyed Belmokhtar in 2013 with crimes related to a brazen attack on a gas facility in Algeria were 37 hostages died. Three Americans were among the dead.
"It was a single strike conducted by a manned aircraft," a Pentagon official with direct knowledge of the operation told CNN. There were no U.S. personnel on the ground, the official said.
U.S. aerial intelligence assets were tracking Belmokhtar's movements at the time of the raid, the U.S. official said, but the outcome of the operation was still being assessed.
The Libyan government went further in a statement Sunday, saying that the U.S. airstrike "led to the killing of Moktar Belmokhtar and a group of Libyans who are members of a terrorist organization in Eastern Libya."
The strike happened at 2 a.m. Sunday (8 p.m. ET Saturday).
In New York, Belmokhtar was charged on various conspiracy counts including hostage-taking, kidnapping, providing material support to al Qaeda and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction.
http://youtu.be/S5tlkb3J5CM
A U.S. plane carried out a strike inside Libya on Sunday, reportedly killing a key terror figure in North Africa, U.S. and Libyan officials said.
The target was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist fighter affiliated with al Qaeda in North Africa, a U.S. official told CNN.
The Libyan government said Belmokhtar was killed in the strike, something that U.S. officials have not confirmed.
Federal prosecutors in New York had charged the one-eyed Belmokhtar in 2013 with crimes related to a brazen attack on a gas facility in Algeria were 37 hostages died. Three Americans were among the dead.
"It was a single strike conducted by a manned aircraft," a Pentagon official with direct knowledge of the operation told CNN. There were no U.S. personnel on the ground, the official said.
U.S. aerial intelligence assets were tracking Belmokhtar's movements at the time of the raid, the U.S. official said, but the outcome of the operation was still being assessed.
The Libyan government went further in a statement Sunday, saying that the U.S. airstrike "led to the killing of Moktar Belmokhtar and a group of Libyans who are members of a terrorist organization in Eastern Libya."
The strike happened at 2 a.m. Sunday (8 p.m. ET Saturday).
In New York, Belmokhtar was charged on various conspiracy counts including hostage-taking, kidnapping, providing material support to al Qaeda and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction.
http://youtu.be/S5tlkb3J5CM