The head of the U.S. Africa Command said Wednesday that the U.S. is very carefully watching what he described as “nascent” Islamic State training camps in Libya --- but downplayed the threat they posed.
Gen. David Rodriguez said in a Pentagon press briefing that it is his belief that the camps may be made up of local militias that are trying to get on the map by working “the ISIS label.”
“We don’t have enough information to know how serious they are,” he said.
Rodriguez added that he could not provide any evidence that people had migrated to these camps from Iraq or Syria, where the militant group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, is active.
Rodriguez also spoke on a variety of other topics, including the terror attack in Benghazi, the threat posed by terror group Boko Haram and Ebola in West Africa.
Rodriguez said that the U.S. is still actively searching for the perpetrators of the Benghazi attack, which killed four Americans. He said the U.S. is doing so ““without any people on the ground.”
He also said the U.S. is also assisting in the search for the hundreds of schoolgirls who were kidnapped in Nigeria by Boko Haram, and has found areas of interest. However, he said the Nigerian government has been unable to follow up on those leads.