By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 7 October 2016:
Confirmation that a number of Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council (BRSC) commanders have been killed this week has led to speculation that the city’s Ansar Al-Sharia leader is among them.
A statement from the BRSC confirms the death on Thursday of a group of its commanders in Ganfouda as a result of airstrikes by the Libyan National Army (LNA). The statement does not name the dead but says that one of them had for the past two years been “the most prominent” commander in their campaign.
It is thought this refers to Mukhtar Burezeiza, the leader of Ansar Al-Sharia in Benghazi who took over when its founder Mohamed Al-Zahawi was wounded in fighting near Benghazi’s Benina Airport in October 2014.
Zahawi later died in hospital in Turkey.
The LNA had aleady said its helicopters carried out heavy airstrikes on Ganfouda on Thursday and that it had inflicted heavy losses on the militants.
