B--2 bombers strike IS camps in Libya

U.S. offifficials say the attacks killed more than 80 fifighters.

WASHINGTON — U. S . Ai r Force B-2 bombers attacked a pair of Islamic State military camps in Libya, killing more than 80 fighters in an unusual mission that may have marked the fifinal demonstration of military force of President Barack Obama’s global counterterrorism campaign.

The mil i t a nt s t a r ge te d in the airstrikes included I s l a m i c S t a t e m e m b e r s “actively planning operations against our allies in Europe,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday. He would not say more about the nature of the threat.

“The s e were c r i t i c a l l y important strikes for our campaign and a clear example of 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.

Among the questions facing the new administration of President-elect 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.

C a r t e r d e f e n d e d t h e administration’s efffffffffffforts to extinguish the 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, “has little nests, sometimes of people who rebranded themselves, who were there already and received inspiration and sometimes support.”

The B-2 bombers flflew more than 30 hours roundtrip from Missouri and dropped about 100 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, which are equipped with GPS guidance control to help them find their targets with precision.

But it is unusual for the U.S. to send the bomber on a counterterrorism mission, particularly against such a modest number of targets like the camps in Libya. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said it was the fifirst time the B-2s were used in combat since the 2011 air campaign that forced Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafifi from power and led to his killing.

Air Force MQ-9 drones known as Reapers also participated in the attack, dropping Hellfifire air-to-surface missiles at the same sets of targets, offifficials said.

The camps were located about 30 miles southwest of the central coastal cit y of Sirte, Cook said. He and Carter said the mission was undertaken in cooperation with Libya’s government of national accord.