A senior al-Qaeda operative and another jihadist were killed in a US air strike in Libya, the Pentagon confirmed Wednesday. The March 24 strike near Ubari in southern Libya killed “two al-Qaeda terrorists, including Musa Abu Dawud, a high-ranking Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) official,” the US military’s Africa Command said in a statement. As is the case in Somalia, the Pentagon has the authority to conduct plane and drone strikes in Libya, provided it has the support of the local government. “Dawud trained AQIM recruits in Libya for attack operations in the region,” the Africom statement read. Jihadists and people-traffickers have taken advantage of the chaos to gain a foothold in the North African country.

Source: The North Africa Journal March 29, 2018 05:42 UTC