WASHINGTON — A Daesh (the so-called IS) operative suspected of involvement in the 2012 attack on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, has been killed in a US airstrike in Iraq, the Pentagon said. Ali Awni Al-Harzi “operated closely with multiple ISIL-associated extremists throughout North Africa and the Middle East,” Defense Department spokesman Col. Steve Warren said in a statement, using one acronym for the militant group. “His death degrades ISIL's ability to integrate North African militants into the Syrian and Iraqi fight and removes a militant with long ties to international terrorism.” Warren said Al-Harzi, a Tunisian national, was killed last week in Mosul. California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Al-Harzi “was responsible for planning hundreds of suicide attacks across the world and was one of the first foreign fighters” to join the Daesh group. Schiff said Al-Harzi “was also responsible for recruiting foreign fighters and sending them to the fight in Syria.” — AP
