Al Qaeda denies death of Libyan militant commander

An al Qaeda affiliate is denying reports that veteran militant commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in a U.S. airstrike last week.

According to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islamist organizations, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has posted on Twitter denying the reports and asserting that Belmokhtar, also known as Khalid Abu al-Abbas, is alive.

{mosads}”The mujahid commander Khalid Abu al-Abbas is still alive and well, and he wanders and roams in the land of Allah, supporting his allies and vexing his enemies,” the terror group said, according to Reuters.

The uncertainty surrounding Belmokhtar’s status would not be anything new for the militant, who was allegedly behind a 2013 attack on an Algerian gas field that left 40 workers dead and kidnapped multiple foreigners.

He has been reportedly killed in action multiple times in recent years, and experts of the region were hesitant to wholeheartedly believe the Libyan government’s claims on Monday that he was killed in a U.S. strike late last week.  

If he were to have been killed, the death would be a major setback for the al Qaeda affiliate in Northern Africa, and would amount to the second major jihadi combatant killed this week. Both al Qaeda and the White House have said that Nasir al-Wahishi, the No. 2 al Qaeda leader and the head of the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed by a drone strike. 

Belmokhtar has had a somewhat tenuous relationship with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and has instead tended to lead his own militias. Still, he has maintained allegiance to al Qaeda’s central leadership.