President Obama has authorized a 30-day mission for the U.S. military to conduct airstrikes against the Islamic State terror group in Libya as new strikes were unleashed Tuesday, Fox News has learned.
Marine Corps Harrier jets launched from the Navy amphibious assault ship USS Wasp conducted at least two airstrikes against ISIS targets in the coastal city of Sirte Tuesday. USS Wasp is set to remain off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea for the next month along with an escort ship, the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney.
The U.S. has launched at least seven airstrikes in total since the campaign began Monday.
Speaking at the White House Tuesday, Obama explained, “At the request of [the Libyan] government, after they had already made significant progress against ISIL and had essentially pushed ISIL into a very confined area in and around Sirte, it is in America's national security interests in our fight against ISIL to make sure that they're able to finish the job.”
“This is a finite period of time and a very finite mission,” Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis told reporters. “We don’t envision this as being something that’s going to be too long” in duration, he added.
Tuesday's strikes destroyed an ISIS rocket launcher and a heavy equipment excavator, Davis said. He added that three Harrier jets and two unmanned Reaper drones conducted yesterday's strikes, destroying two Soviet-era ISIS T-72 tanks, two other vehicles and an ISIS “fighting position.”
While President Obama’s authorization to strike ISIS in Libya was limited to Sirte, Capt. Davis said the U.S. military reserved the right to conduct counterterrorism strikes elsewhere in the country as the U.S. military did in November and February.
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