U.S. warplanes on Friday struck an Islamic State camp in Libya, where Noureddine Chouchane, a senior terror operative, was believed to be located.
According to media reports, Chouchane is believed to have played a key role in two deadly terror attacks last year in Tunisia, one at Tunis’ Bardo Museum and another attack at a seaside resort in Sousse.
More than 30 militants from the terror group were also believed to have been killed at the camp near the coastal city of Sabratha, according to the New York Times. According to an anonymous Western official, many of those killed were recruits believed to be from Tunisia.
The mayor of Sabratha put the death toll at 41, with six others injured. He said the airstrikes occurred around 3:30 a.m.
Mayor Hussaine al-Dawadi said the airstrikes occurred in Qasr al-Allagh, a farming district five miles outside of the town.
“A number of them living in a secluded area like this is, of course, suspicious,” he said on Friday. “It must have been a sleeper cell, not a training camp.”
According to Jamal Naji Zubia, the head of the foreign news media office in Tripoli, the airstrikes targeted a farmhouse that had been seized by ISIS militants.
Some officials say they believed the militants gathered at the farmhouse to her a speech by a Muslim religious leader.
The anonymous Western official said the airstrikes were focused on Chouchane, and said intelligence officials were working to determine whether he had been killed. The official also said the attack does not represent the start of a major new American war in a Muslim country.
