{Two Serbian nationals held hostage in Libya since November were among those killed in Friday’s air strikes by US warplanes, the Serbian government says.}<\/p>\n
The jets targeted positions of the self-styled Islamic State group (IS) in the city of Sabratha.<\/p>\n
The kidnapped Serbs, Sladjana Stankovic and Jovica Stepic, worked at the Serbian embassy in Libya.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic described their deaths as “terrible collateral damage”.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told a news conference the Serbian authorities had been trying to negotiate their release but the kidnappers’ financial demands had been “impossible” to meet.<\/p>\n
Mr Davic said a protest note would be sent to Washington for failing to inform the Serbian authorities before the raid.<\/p>\n
Libya’s internationally recognised government, based in the east of the country, was also angered by the US raid.<\/p>\n
It said in a statement on Saturday that the attack had not been co-ordinated with Libyan authorities and was “a clear and flagrant violation of sovereignty of the Libyan state”.<\/p>\n
{{Tunisian targeted}}<\/p>\n
Ms Stankovic, a communications officer, and Mr Stepic, a driver, were seized on 8 November after their diplomatic convoy, bound for Tunisia, was rammed and fired on near Sabratha. Serbian ambassador Oliver Potezica escaped unharmed.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon said on Saturday it had “no information” that the Serbs’ deaths were a result of the US strikes.<\/p>\n
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said: “Our forces watched this training camp for weeks leading up to the operation, and at the time of the strike there were no indications of any civilians present.”<\/p>\n
The dozens killed in Friday’s air strikes on the IS camp reportedly included Tunisian extremist Noureddine Chouchane.<\/p>\n
He has been linked to two attacks in Tunisia last year, including one which killed 30 Britons in the beach resort of Sousse.<\/p>\n
“We took this action against Sabir [Noureddine Chouchan] in the training camp after determining that both he and the Isil [IS] fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region,” Mr Cook said.<\/p>\n
IS has been active in Libya for more than a year. The US estimates the group has up to 6,000 fighters there.<\/p>\n
More than four years after the overthrow of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the country remains fragmented, fought over by a number of groups, including IS.<\/p>\n
Different authorities rule over various regions, hampering efforts to find a unified national administration.<\/p>\n
Source:BBC:[Libya air strikes: Two Serbs killed in US attack on IS->http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-35621426]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Two Serbian nationals held hostage in Libya since November were among those killed in Friday’s air strikes by US warplanes, the Serbian government says.} The jets targeted positions of the self-styled Islamic State group (IS) in the city of Sabratha. The kidnapped Serbs, Sladjana Stankovic and Jovica Stepic, worked at the Serbian embassy in Libya. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000072344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":{"id":2000072344,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23387.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23387.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23387.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23387.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23387.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton23387.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000072344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23387"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23387"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}