WASHINGTON —
U.S. special forces have launched major anti-terror operations in Libya and Somalia.
Defense Department spokesman George Little, in a written statement, confirmed U.S. forces have captured Abu Anas el-Liby, an al-Qaida leader indicted in the United States for the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salam, Tanzania.
The attacks 15 years ago killed more than 200 people and injured thousands.
Little said Abu Anas is currently detained by the U.S. military in what he described only as a secure location outside Libya.
News reports earlier quoted members of Abu Anas's family as saying foreign troops arrested him outside his home in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on Saturday.
In a separate development, U.S. officials on Saturday said U.S. Navy SEALs were involved in an operation in southern Somalia Friday that targeted a leader of al-Shabab, the group responsible for the recent attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping center.
The Pentagon did not release the name of the individual they were seeking, but a U.S. official described that person as a “high value al-Shabab terrorist leader.”
Reports say the U.S. commandos withdrew after coming under heavy gunfire. A U.S. official says no American personnel were killed or injured. The official says U.S. forces did inflict an undisclosed number of casualties among al-Shabab members.
It was not immediately clear if the individual the U.S. forces were targeting was among the dead or wounded.
Defense Department spokesman George Little, in a written statement, confirmed U.S. forces have captured Abu Anas el-Liby, an al-Qaida leader indicted in the United States for the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salam, Tanzania.
The attacks 15 years ago killed more than 200 people and injured thousands.
Little said Abu Anas is currently detained by the U.S. military in what he described only as a secure location outside Libya.
News reports earlier quoted members of Abu Anas's family as saying foreign troops arrested him outside his home in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, on Saturday.
In a separate development, U.S. officials on Saturday said U.S. Navy SEALs were involved in an operation in southern Somalia Friday that targeted a leader of al-Shabab, the group responsible for the recent attack on Nairobi’s Westgate shopping center.
The Pentagon did not release the name of the individual they were seeking, but a U.S. official described that person as a “high value al-Shabab terrorist leader.”
Reports say the U.S. commandos withdrew after coming under heavy gunfire. A U.S. official says no American personnel were killed or injured. The official says U.S. forces did inflict an undisclosed number of casualties among al-Shabab members.
It was not immediately clear if the individual the U.S. forces were targeting was among the dead or wounded.
