Pentagon Denies Killing Serbian Hostages in Libya Strike

Kerry Offered Condolences for Killings on Monday

On Friday, US warplanes launches a series of airstrikes against an ISIS camp in Libya, killing 49 people. Over the weekend, Serbia reported that they’d received word two of their hostages were among the slain, and noted they were in the process of trying to recover those hostages when they were slain.

Though the Pentagon had insisted at the time they had no idea any civilians were present, Secretary of State John Kerry called Serbia on Monday to offer “condolences” for killing the pair. Now the Pentagon is denying that they killed them at all.

The two Serbians were working for the embassy and were kidnapped by ISIS in the same area back in November. ISIS has since released pictures of their bodies, and the Pentagon is insisting if they’d been in America’s airstrikes they’d be far more blown up than they are.

Serbia was historically on relatively good terms with the Gadhafi government, which was ousted by NATO in 2011. Serbia maintains an embassy in Tripoli, despite the danger in the region, because a number of Serbian civilians continue to live there.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.