AU.S. attack on Libya last week aimed at terrorists in an Islamic State camp unfortunately killed two Serbian hostages.
AU.S. attack on Libya last week aimed at terrorists in an Islamic State camp unfortunately killed two Serbian hostages.
The F-15E jet strike in Sabratha, west of Tripoli, took at least 49 lives. The principal target was Noureddine Chouchane, a senior operative suspected of organizing attacks in Tunisia and who U.S. officials think died in the bombing. Tragically, two Serbian embassy officials who were taken hostage in November, communications officer Sladjana Stankovic and driver Jovica Stepic, died while being detained at the camp.
Last year, a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed two other Western hostages, Warren Weinstein, an American contractor, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian aid worker.
Since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, Libya has been in chaos, with no generally recognized government. Two rival groups pretend to be the legitimate authority, one based in Tobruk in the east and another in Tripoli, the former capital.
Numerous militias, either tribally or locally based, are scattered about the country, all claiming sovereignty over their territory. The United Nations has been laboring mightily, so far without success, to obtain these groups’ agreement to a government of national unity.
Special forces from France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States also are in Libya, trying to disrupt the rising influx of Islamic State fighters, about 6,500 of whom have come from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and, of course, Libya. They are largely based along the Mediterranean coast and centered on the city of Sirte. The various Libyan authorities do not welcome the foreign presence for the most part and the Tripoli-based government vigorously criticized the U.S. attack on Sabratha. Serbia has demanded an explanation.
With no declaration of war or other legal justification, the United States unleashed its attack last week, with the hope of crushing a terrorists’ nest. But didn’t American intelligence know the Serbs were being detained at the camp? The Pentagon says it kept close watch for weeks on the site and noticed no civilians.
The fact that its information was wrong is even more disturbing.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette