U. S. B- 2s bomb Libya ISIS sites

Plotters against Europe allies targeted, Carter says; 80 die

attackedU. S. Aira pair Force of B- Islamic2 bombersState militarymore than camps80 fighters.in Libya, killing

The militants targeted in the airstrikes members included“actively Islamic planningState operations against our allies in Europe,” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday. He would not say more about the nature of the threat. “These were critically important and strikesa clear for exampleour campaignof our enduring commitment to destroy ISIL’s cancer not only in Iraq and Syria but everywhere it emerges,” Carter said on his last full day as secretary of defense. ISIL and ISIS are acronyms used to refer to the Islamic State group. Among the questions facing the administration of Presidentelect Donald Trump is how to counter the Islamic State in places like Libya, where extremists have vast swaths of ungoverned territory to hide, train and prepare attacks. The Pentagon’s Africa Command announced Dec. 19 the official end of air operations against the Islamic State in Sirte, the group’s coastal stronghold, after conducting 495 strikes against truck bombs, heavy guns, tanks and command bunkers there. Carter defended efforts by President Barackto extinguish Obama’s the administration Islamic State threat, while acknowledging that it has spread from Iraq and Syria to North Africa, Afghanistan, Europe and parts of Asia. He said extremists will remain a concern in Libya as long as that country is embroiled in a civil war. The Islamic State, he said, “peopleand sometimeshas receivedlittle who who nests, support.”were rebrandedTripoli inspiration sometimesthere already themselves,andof than The 30 B- hours2 bombers round flew trip Misrata more from Missouri and dropped about Sirte 100 munitions of a type known as a Joint Direct Attack Munition, which is equipped with GPS guidance control to help it find its target with precision. Each B- 2 is capable of carrying up to 80 of the munitions.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said it was the first time

the since B- the2s were2011 air used campaignin combat that

forced Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi from power and

led to his killing.

The U. S. military has other aircraft based much closer

to Libya than Missouri, but

the Pentagon chose the B- 2s

for their ability to drop many

bombs in a short time span and

loiter overhead for a long time,

said Col. Patrick Ryder, an Air

Force spokesman.

Air Force MQ- 9 drones

known as Reapers also participated in the attack, dropping

Hellfire air- to- surface missiles

at the same sets of targets, officials said.

The Pentagon showed reporters a video clip from aerial

surveillance of one of the camps

before the attacks. A number

of men could be seen carrying

weaponry from the back of a

partially camouflaged vehicle.

Weapons at the camp included

rocket- propelled grenades and

unspecified shells, Cook said.

The camps were about 28

miles southwest of of Sirte,

Cook added. He and Carter

said the mission was undertaken in cooperation with Libya’s

government of national accord,

which has been unable to assert

control over the whole country.

Cook said some of the militants had fled to the desert

camps from Sirte to “reorganize.”

“They posed a security

threatU. S. nationalto Libya, interests,”the region,he told and

reporters.

The initial assessment is

the strikes were successful, he

said, adding that the U. S. was

prepared to further support

Libyan efforts to defeat the Islamic Benghazi State.

The country remains divided between east and west, with

no effective government and a

multitude of rival factions and

militias. Information for this article was contributed by Thomas GibbonsNeff and Dan Lamothe of

The Washington Post and by Eric Schmitt of The New York Times.