Sahel Region: Al Qaeda and Attack Saturday

sahel region: In 2016, the military conducted nearly 500 airstrikes in the coastal city of Sirte over several months to destroy Daesh's stronghold there, according to Toronto Star. But the attack Saturday that the military's Africa Command said had killed two militants later identified by a spokesperson as belonging to Al Qaeda's branch in northwestern Africa took place in the country's southwest, a notorious haven for a deadly mix of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups that also operate in the Sahel region of Niger, Chad, Mali and Algeria. Until now, the Pentagon had focused its counterterrorism strikes in Libya almost exclusively on Daesh fighters and operatives farther north eight since U.S. President Donald Trump took office. This appears to be the continuation of expanding AFRICOM activity in Libya's ungoverned areas, said Deborah K. Jones, who served as U.S. ambassador to Libya from 2013 to 2015, referring to the Africa Command.A missile fired by the U.S. drone struck a house in Ubari, 700 kilometres south of Tripoli, in an area close to major oilfields that was wracked by violent ethnic feuding in 2015. Local residents were quoted by the media outlets as saying the house had been frequented by foreigners. Pictures in Libyan news media outlets showed a mutilated corpse lying in the rubble of a house, and a pair of shrapnel-ridden vehicles nearby. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.