The US military has launched air strikes targeting an al Qaida-linked militant leader in eastern Libya who has been charged with leading the attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2013 that killed at least 35 hostages, including three Americans.
The Libyan government said planes targeted Mokhtar Belmokhtar and several others in eastern Libya. A US official said two F-15 fighter jets launched multiple 500lb bombs in the attack.
US officials are still assessing the results of the strike. Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said the military believes the strike was successful and hit the target, but an Islamist source with links to extremists in Libya claimed the strike probably missed him and killed others.
The Islamist said Belmokhtar was not at the site of the US air strike. He said it killed four Ansar Shariah members in Ajdabiya, 530 miles east of the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Neither US officials nor the Libyan government provided proof of Belmokhtar’s death, which probably requires a DNA test or an announcement by Belmokhtar’s group that he was killed.
Officials said there were no US personnel on the ground for the assault.
The US filed terrorism charges in 2013 against Belmokhtar in connection with the Algeria attack. Officials have said they believe he remained a threat to US and Western interests.
Belmokhtar, an Algerian in his 40s, had just split off from al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, to start his own franchise.
He has a long history of leading terrorist activities as a member of AQIM, is the operational leader of the al Qaida-associated Al Murabitun organisation in north-west Africa, and maintains his personal allegiance to al Qaida, Col Warren said.
The Libyan government said the strike came after consultation with the US so that America could take action against a terror leader there.
The charges filed against Belmokhtar by federal law enforcement officials in New York included conspiring to support al Qaida and use of a weapon of mass destruction. Additional charges of conspiring to take hostages and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence carry a maximum penalty of death.
At the time, US prosecutor Preet Bharara said Belmokhtar “unleashed a reign of terror years ago, in furtherance of his self-proclaimed goal of waging bloody jihad against the West”.
Authorities also offered a 5 million dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of Belmokhtar, also known as “the one-eyed sheikh” since he lost an eye in combat.
The air strike comes as al Qaida militants in eastern Libya continue to battle with members of Islamic State, as the warring groups fight over power and resources.
The US has been involved before in the fight against extremists in Libya.
US special forces went into the Libyan capital Tripoli in 2013 and seized Abu Anas al-Libi, whisking him out of the country.
Al-Libi was accused by the US of involvement in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa. He has been on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list since it was introduced shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001. There was a 5 million dollar bounty on his head. Al-Libi died in January in a US hospital from a long-standing medical condition.
On September 11 2012, an attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Other al Qaida linked militants are believed to have been behind that attack.
Last week, a senior al Qaida leader was killed by masked gunman, prompting the group to declare holy war on the local IS affiliate. Clashes between the two groups in the eastern coastal city of Darna killed 11 people.
Libya has been divided between an Islamist-led government backed by militias that seized the capital of Tripoli last August and its elected parliament, which now convenes in the far east of the country.
Militants have taken advantage of the chaos, flowing fighters into the country’s vast ungoverned spaces, and as IS has grown in power, fuelled by successes in Iraq and Syria, some al Qaida fighters have switched loyalties.
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