One of the militants killed in a United States air strike in Libya over the weekend was a high ranking Al-Qaeda official in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the U.S. said on Wednesday.
The strike on Saturday, the first against Al-Qaeda militants in Libya, killed "two terrorists" as part of efforts to deny militants a safe haven in the country's vast desert.
The military had not said who the target of the strike was until now.
The U.S. designated Abu Dawud as a terrorist two years ago.
He began engaging in terrorist activity as early as 1992. He was a senior member of the Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), now known as AQIM, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, and participated in multiple terrorist attacks in that capacity, according to the U.S.
As a senior leader for AQIM, Dawud is responsible for multiple terrorist attacks, including the Feb. 4-5, 2013 attack on the military barracks in Khenchela, Algeria, that injured multiple soldiers and a July 2013 attack on a Tunisian military patrol in the Mount Chaambi area that killed nine soldiers.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
