U.S. stealth bombers strike Islamic State fighters in Libya

A flight of U.S. B-2 stealth bombers struck Islamic State targets southwest of the Libyan city of Sirte on Monday, less than a month after the Pentagon declared an end to an extended air campaign there.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement that the aircraft hit two Islamic State encampments about 30 miles outside Sirte and that the outposts were inhabited by some of the fighters who had fled the city in the fall. The operation was approved by President Obama, Cook said.

“While we are still evaluating the results of the strikes, the initial assessment indicates they were successful,” he said. “The United States remains prepared to further support Libyan efforts to counter terrorist threats and to defeat (the Islamic State) in Libya.”

A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational details, said that drones also participated in the strikes and that “several dozen” Islamic State fighters were thought to have been killed. The camps were in remote desert locations, and the official said no civilians were believed to have been hit in the bombardment.

Sirte was described as the capital of the Islamic State’s Libyan caliphate by the extremist group less than a year ago. U.S. aircraft began pounding the city with airstrikes in August in an effort to support Libyan government ground forces. Western special operations troops, including a small contingent of Americans, also helped in the offensive.

In total, the United States launched more than 500 airstrikes in the air campaign, called Operation Odyssey Lightning. Toward the end of the mission, a small pocket of Islamic State fighters in downtown Sirte proved especially resilient, forcing a weeks-long effort of concerted strikes and heavy ground fighting before the roughly dozen or so fighters were killed or surrendered.

It is unclear why the B-2 stealth bombers were needed to hit the Islamic State encampment. A multitude of U.S. bomber and attack aircraft are stationed in the Middle East and Mediterranean, while B-2s are primarily flown out of Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

The Washington Post reported in November that the Pentagon had been quietly preparing for follow-on strikes once Sirte was liberated, focusing intelligence-gathering assets and surveillance aircraft on the fighters who started to flee the city as their defenses crumbled.