Libya

The United States launched multiple airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Libya on Monday, opening a new, more persistent front against the group at the request of the United Nations-backed government, Libyan and U.S. officials said.

The White House sought Monday to share the blame for the failed aftermath of the 2011 intervention in Libya, arguing the U.S. and its NATO allies asked too few questions about what would follow after dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled.

American F-15E fighter-bombers struck an Islamic State training camp in rural Libya near the Tunisian border Friday, killing dozens, probably including an IS operative considered responsible for deadly attacks in Tunisia last year, U.S. and local officials said. The strike did not appear to mark the beginning of a sustained U.S. campaign in Libya but a Pentagon spokesman said "it may not be the last."

U.S. officials have publicly warned of the risks of Libya becoming the next Syria, where the Islamic State flourished amid civil war and spread into Iraq.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- Islamic State militants unleashed suicide bombings Friday in eastern Libya, killing at least 40 people in what the group said was retaliation for Egyptian airstrikes against the extremists' aggressive new branch in North Africa.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) -- An Islamist-allied militia group in control of Libya's capital now guards the U.S. Embassy and its residential compound, a commander said Sunday, as onlookers toured the abandoned homes of diplomats who fled the country more than a month ago.

The State Department has shuttered the U.S. embassy in Libya and evacuated American staffers there as the security situation in the capital Tripoli deteriorates amid worsening clashes between rival militias.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Libyan militant now in U.S. custody in the Benghazi attacks faces a court appearance where federal prosecutors will argue why he should remain in detention.

Ex-CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers during private hearings Friday that he believed all along that the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya was a terrorist strike, even though that wasn't how the Obama administration initially described it publicly.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus will testify before the House Intelligence committee Friday on events that led to the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in an attack on the U.S. Consulate at Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11.