Pentagon confirms death of senior IS figure in Libya

Last updated: December 8, 2015 3:19 am

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A file picture taken from a video released on January 4, 2014 by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)'s al-Furqan Media allegedly shows ISIL fighters marching at an undisclosed location. ISIL gunmen seized Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, on June 10, 2014 as troops threw away their uniforms and abandoned their posts, officials said, in another blow to the Iraqi authorities, who appear incapable of stopping militant advances. (AFP PHOTO / AL-FURQAN MEDIA )

The United States said on Monday that it could confirm the death of the senior leader of the “Islamic State” group in Libya, after an airstrike against him in November.

The Islamist leader known as “Abu Nabil” – also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi – was targeted on 13 November in a US airstrike carried out by F-15 aircraft.

The strike hit a compound in the city of Derna on the Libyan coast.

Immediately after the airstrike, a Pentagon spokesman said: “Nabil’s death will degrade ISIL’s ability to meet the group’s objectives in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and planning external attacks on the United States.”

Another alleged terrorist leader was reported killed by the US military on Monday.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said that a senior leader of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group Al-Shabaab was killed in a US military airstrike in Somalia, carried out on 2 December.

The Pentagon named him as Abd El-Rahman Sandhere – also known as “Ukash” – and said the strike represented a significant blow to the group.

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By Nourhan Elsebahy

Nourhan El-Sebahy is a journalist at DNE’s politics section. Just before joining DNE’s staff, she was working as a journalist at El-Watan newspaper “an Egyptian daily independent newspaper”. She holds a Master’s Degree of Journalism and Mass Communication from the American University in Cairo (AUC). She was awarded by Certificate of honor on the Fourth Scientific Day Celebration in 2013 and Graduate Student’s honor at AUC in 2012.