Who Did the U.S. Kill In Libya Airstrikes?

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Sun Nov 15, 2015 at 07:56:28 PM EST
Tags: ISIS, Libya, Syria (all tags)

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The Libya Herald reports Abu Nabil Al-Anbari, was not killed in a U.S. airstrike near Derna in Libya yesterday.

More importantly, how can the U.S. say al-Anbari is probably the Isis leader featured in the Egyptian Coptic Christian killing video from February, "A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross?"

The leader in the video spoke English with an American accent. At the time, experts said if he was not American, he spent a lot of time in the U.S. Nabil al-Anbari is Iraqi and a former police officer.

al-Furqān Media put out two videos featuring the English speaking killer. The first was the video of the Egyptian Coptic Christians being beheaded on the beach which is attributed to Wilayat Tarabulus (Tripoli.) The second, a few months later, depicts the slaughter of Ethiopian Coptic Christians (described here) and is attributed to Wilayat Barqa and Wilayat Fezzan. (I think he also may be in this video by the group, released in September, 2015, at about 14 minutes in, speaking in Arabic, but that's just my opinion.) [More...]

The first video of the Egyptian Coptic Christians being killed seemed to be staged. I wrote about the incongruities at the time. I just came across this SITE article with more reasons it seems staged.

Other incongruities about Nabil al-Anbari: The Wall St Journal reported Nabil al-Anabari served time at Abu Ghraib. According to CNN, he was at Camp Bucca with al-Baghdadi. An article by Politico refers to him as a preacher, when everyone else reports he's a former Iraqi police or military officer who became a military operative for ISIS.

It's also curious that he was reported hanged in June. (The Daily Beast also reported the hanging, but it referred to him as Ali al Anbari who is apparently a different ISIS leader. Both seem to be reporting the same incident.)

I don't know if the U.S. killed ISIS leader Nabil al-Anbari in an airstrike yesterday or not. But I think it strains credulity for the U.S. to say Nabil al-Anbari is likely the leader featured in the Coptic Christian killing videos. They look nothing alike. The guy in the video has different shaped eyes, eyebrows and a thinner nose bridge. It's doubtful Nabil al-Anbari would speak such good English.

The English-speaking presenter in the videos is probably no more important to ISIS than Jihadi John. He's may be the leader of the Hisbah police in his Wilayat in Libya, but I doubt he's Nabil al-Anbari, the leader of ISIS in Libya.

There were obviously air strikes against ISIS in Libya yesterday -- a first for the U.S. -- but the rest of the story is as murky as the story about Abu Sayyaf, the supposed Tunisian "oil leader of ISIS" killed in the attempt to free hostages in Syria.

On a related note, it's been ages since anyone has reported on the the English speaking killer at the Syrian army base in Raqqa (below right), who the FBI put out a call to identify. I think he looks a lot like the guy on the left from the Egyptian Coptic Christian killing video.

Many have reported that a number of ISIS fighters from Syria returned to Libya. I wonder if he was one of them.

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Who Did the U.S. Kill In Libya Airstrikes? | 2 comments (2 topical)

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not to be difficult (none / 0) (#1)
by zaitztheunconvicted on Mon Nov 16, 2015 at 08:18:24 AM EST

There are a variety of categories and one of your categories is the war in Iraq.

Is this topic placed in the war in Iraq because ISIS controls some of Iraq, though the story is about a person in Lybia killed or not? He or some persons related to him are apparently being targeted in part for having killed some Egyptian Christians, again, not very much a part of "the war in Iraq" . . . Or is it part of the war in Iraq because this fellow was at one point in Iraq, though I have not been paying attention to his whereabouts?

Should there be a topic on ISIS separate from the war in Iraq?

either way is fine with me . . . but I tend notice things such as that . . . when headlines and news content does not match or other similar things . . .

: when I first began (none / 0) (#2)
by Jeralyn on Tue Nov 17, 2015 at 06:04:34 PM EST

covering ISIS it was about Iraq. To keep the posts all in one place, I almost always put ISIS in the war in Iraq category, and add tags for other topics (eg. Libya, Syria, various people, etc.) You can use the search box for posts related to what you want to read about (but it does exact searches only)