The U.S. military says it launched weekend airstrikes targeting and likely killing an Al-Qaeda-linked militant leader in eastern Libya charged with leading the attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2013 that killed at least 35 hostages, including three Americans.
An Islamist with ties to Libyan militants, however, said the airstrikes missed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, instead killing four members of a Libyan extremist group the U.S. has linked to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
U.S. officials said they are still assessing the results of the Saturday strike, but Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said the military believes the strike was successful and hit the target.
A U.S. official said two F-15 fighter jets launched multiple 500-pound bombs in the attack.
The U.S. filed terrorism charges in 2013 against Belmokhtar in connection with the Algeria attack.
The Libyan government in a statement Sunday said that the strike targeting Belmokhtar came after consultation with the U.S. so that America could take action against a terror leader there.
The official couldn't confirm that was the same strike that killed Belmokhtar.
The Islamist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals in restive Libya, told The Associated Press early Monday that Belmokhtar wasn't at the site of the U.S. airstrike. He said the strike killed four Ansar Shariah members in Ajdabiya, some 850 kilometers (530 miles) east of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
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