The U.S. conducted an airstrike in Libya on Friday against a senior Islamic State leader, the Pentagon announced.
Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said Saturday morning that the strike targeting Abu Nabil was the first against an Islamic State leader in Libya, showing that “we will go after ISIL leaders wherever they operate.”
The operation in Libya had already been approved and initiated before the Paris terrorist attacks, the Pentagon said.
Nabil, an Iraqi national, may have been the spokesman in a February video showing the execution of Coptic Christians, according to Cook’s statement.
This is the second senior Islamic State target taken off the battlefield this week by U.S. airstrikes. On Thursday, an airstrike in Syria targeted Mohamed Emwazi, also known as “Jihadi John,” a British citizen thought to have participated in the execution videos of U.S. journalists Jim Foley and Steven Sotloff.
