Sebha_ Three prominent terrorist leaders affiliated with Al Qaeda have been arrested by the Libyan National Army (LNA) in Tarout region in southwestern Libya.
LNA sources told Al-Ain news agency on Wednesday that forces from Tariq bin Ziyad brigade and other security forces in the region carried out well planned operation against a terrorist cell in the Tarout area about 30 kilometers from the city of Brak Al-Shati resulting on the arrest of the terrorists who belonged to Al Qaeda in the Maghreb including a foreign terrorist from Mauritanian.
The Mauritanian was an associate and escort of the former leader of Al Qaeda Libya’s branch Abdel Moneim Al-Hasnawi, known as “Abu Talha”. Al-Hasnawi was killed by the LNA forces in a similar operation in 2019.
The Mauritanian terrorist has been moving across the desert, taking advantage of his affiliation to Libyan tribes in the south, frequenting Al-Shati region where he was spotted carrying out illegal activities, including smuggling contraband and people.
Although the LNA was able to quell some of the terrorist activities in the south in 2019, they have reappeared lately in the far south taking the Murzuq Basin, Umm al-Aranib and Tigrahi areas as their bases. These terrorists and mercenaries have participated in the fighting in Chad during which Chad’s President Idris Debbi was killed a few weeks ago and caused a political crisis in the country.
The LNA and the newly established National Unity Government fear that the failure of Chadian mercenaries in Chad in battles there could lead them, along with the terrorists, to return to south Libya.