Feb 20 2016 : The Times of India (Chennai)
US kills 40 in Libya, foils attack on west
Tripoli
AGENCIES
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IS Operative Training Recruits Among Dead
US 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.“The US conducted an air strike on Friday morning (Libya time) against an ISIL training camp near Sabratha, Libya, that likely killed ISIL operative Noureddine Chouchane,“ a US defence official said, using an alternative acronym for the IS group.
In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Noureddine Chouchane and other jihadis had been planning attacks against US and other Western interests. It was the second US air raid in the violence-wracked North African country targeting the fastexpanding jihadi group in the past three months.
A jihadi safe house was destroyed in the dawn raid about 70 kilometres west of Tripoli, said the mayor of Sabratha, Hussain al-Dawadi. “The raid killed 41people who were all inside the house,“ Dawadi said.“The vast majority of those killed were Tunisians who were The Pentagon's Cook said the strike was taken because the jihadis were planning at tacks. “We took this action aga inst (Chouchane) and the trai ning camp after determining that both he and the ISIL figh ters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region,“ he said.
Chouchane is suspected o being behind two IS-claimed assaults in Tunisia. The first in March, saw an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tu nis that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. In July , an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisi an city of Sousse killed 38 tourists -including 30 Britons.
The air strikes were carried out by US air force's F-15E jets that took off from a base in Lakenheath, England. Special Operations forces, using reconnaissance drones, satellite imagery and other surveillance equipment, began monitoring the site, a walled compound, several weeks ago as Chouchane gathered several dozen recruits from Tunisia and other countries in the region for what appeared to be a training programme intended to strike one or more targets, according to a Western official.
In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Noureddine Chouchane and other jihadis had been planning attacks against US and other Western interests. It was the second US air raid in the violence-wracked North African country targeting the fastexpanding jihadi group in the past three months.
A jihadi safe house was destroyed in the dawn raid about 70 kilometres west of Tripoli, said the mayor of Sabratha, Hussain al-Dawadi. “The raid killed 41people who were all inside the house,“ Dawadi said.“The vast majority of those killed were Tunisians who were The Pentagon's Cook said the strike was taken because the jihadis were planning at tacks. “We took this action aga inst (Chouchane) and the trai ning camp after determining that both he and the ISIL figh ters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region,“ he said.
Chouchane is suspected o being behind two IS-claimed assaults in Tunisia. The first in March, saw an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tu nis that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. In July , an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisi an city of Sousse killed 38 tourists -including 30 Britons.
The air strikes were carried out by US air force's F-15E jets that took off from a base in Lakenheath, England. Special Operations forces, using reconnaissance drones, satellite imagery and other surveillance equipment, began monitoring the site, a walled compound, several weeks ago as Chouchane gathered several dozen recruits from Tunisia and other countries in the region for what appeared to be a training programme intended to strike one or more targets, according to a Western official.
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