U.S. Targets ISIS in Libya, Citing National Security Threat

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Defense Department reported Friday that its bombing of an Islamic State camp this Friday in Libya was carried out after discovering the jihadists there “were planning external attacks on U.S. and other Western interests in the region.”

“The U.S. military conducted an airstrike in Libya targeting an ISIL (an alternate acronym for Islamic State) training camp near Sabratha and Noureddine Chouchane, a.k.a. ‘Sabir,’ a Tunisian national who was an ISIL senior facilitator in Libya associated with the training camp,” the department said in a statement.

“We took this action against Sabir and the training camp after determining that both he and the ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on U.S. and other Western interests in the region,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters.

Cook recalled that Sabir was considered one of the suspects in perpetrating the deadly March 2015 attack on Tunisia’s Bardo Museum and has helped move potential foreign combatants affiliated with IS from Tunisia to Libya and other countries.

The U.S. attack left some 40 people dead, mostly Tunisians and Algerians, authorities in Libya said, adding that no Libyans were killed.

“This was an instance where we saw an opportunity to strike at ISIL in Libya and we carried out that strike and we feel confident this was a successful strike,” Cook said.

Tunisia together with France are the chief exporters of volunteers to IS, from where close to 5,000 combatants have emigrated to Syria and Iraq, according to official figures.

A large part of those who have returned to Tunisia have traveled on to Libya, where they have contributed to helping develop the branch of IS in that country.