Jihadist From Tunisia Died in Strike in Libya, U.S. Official Says
|
Version 0 of 1. TUNIS — Tunisia’s most wanted jihadist, who masterminded a campaign of assassinations and terrorist attacks, including one against the United States Embassy in Tunis, was killed in an American airstrike in Libya in mid-June that had targeted another Al Qaeda leader, a senior United States official said on Thursday. The jihadist, Seifallah Ben Hassine, also known as Abu Ayadh, was one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants and the leader of the outlawed group Ansar al-Shariah in Tunisia. He had been based in Libya since 2013, according to reports, and ran training camps and a network of militant cells across the region. His death, if confirmed, would be an important victory for Tunisia in its struggle to contain a persistent insurgency in its western border region and a growing threat to its urban centers. Just last Friday, 38 people, most of them British, were massacred at a beach resort in the town of Sousse. In March, 21 people were killed when militants attacked the national museum. The government has attributed many of the attacks to sleeper cells established by Mr. Ben Hassine when he founded Ansar al-Shariah after Tunisia’s revolution in 2011. The news that he had been killed in the airstrike was first reported by the Tunisian station Radio Mosaique and was confirmed by a senior American official in Washington. Officials delayed revealing the information while hoping for DNA confirmation, the radio station said. The American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a confidential military assessment, confirmed the Tunisian report that Mr. Ben Hassine was believed to have died last month in the same attack by Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle jets that targeted Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian and the leader of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. “All indicators are that he was killed,” the official said of Mr. Ben Hassine. The official acknowledged that the United States did not have conclusive proof, like DNA evidence. But after reviewing surveillance and intelligence reports, including online chatter from jihadist fighters, analysts have come to believe that he was killed. Mr. Ben Hassine, who was in his 40s, joined Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1990s. By 2001, he had risen to become one of Bin Laden’s top 10 lieutenants and the commander of the Tunisian Combat Group, according to a Tunisian lawyer who has followed his career closely and asked not to be named for security reasons. Mr. Ben Hassine supplied the two Tunisian suicide bombers who assassinated the prominent Afghan commander Ahmed Shah Massoud. The assassination, two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, has been seen as a pre-emptive strike by Al Qaeda against its Afghan opponents who were allied with the United States. Mr. Ben Hassine fought alongside Bin Laden at Tora Bora in Afghanistan in 2001 before escaping to Pakistan and later Turkey. He was arrested in Turkey, extradited to Tunisia in 2003 and imprisoned for terrorist activities under President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. He was released under an amnesty that benefited hundreds of Islamist political prisoners after the revolution that overthrew Mr. Ben Ali. He founded Ansar al-Shariah, focusing on preaching, charity and the recruitment of young people. Despite his renown as a jihadist, Mr. Ben Hassine said it was not the time for jihad in Tunisia. Nevertheless, he soon turned to violence. In September 2012, three days after the American Mission in Benghazi, Libya, was sacked and burned and four people, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed, Mr. Ben Hassine led a similar operation against the American Embassy in Tunis. Protesters burned cars and looted an American school beside the embassy, and two demonstrators were killed in clashes with the police. Two leftist politicians were assassinated in the months that followed, attacks that Tunisian officials have said were masterminded by Mr. Ben Hassine. After the Tunisian and American governments named Ansar al-Shariah a terrorist organization, Mr. Ben Hassine fled the country. Al Qaeda’s North African branch has denied that Mr. Belmokhtar was killed in the airstrike last month. |