A Benghazi terror suspect and Islamic State operative was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Mosul June 15, according to the Pentagon.
Ali Awni al-Harzi was a key battlefield commander for the Islamic State, reports ABC News. The Tunisian national helped foreigner fighters join the terror group, moving them across the Turkish border into Syria.
Harzi was a “person of interest” in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi, killing U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, according to the Pentagon.
He was one of the first publicly-named suspects in the raid. Reporter Eli Lake, then of The Daily Beast, said U.S. officials were alerted to Harzi’s involvement after he posted about the attack on social media after it began.
A month later, Harzi was arrested in Turkey and deported to Tunisia, where he was questioned by the FBI, reports The Long War Journal. After his release in January of 2013, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tunisian officials “had ‘assured’ the United States that Harzi was ‘under the monitoring of the court,'” reports Thomas Joscelyn.
The Department of State designated Harzi as a terrorist in April.
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