Story highlights The U.S. carries out an airstrike in Libya

The target was a veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar

Libyans say Belmokhtar was killed; U.S. still assessing

(CNN) U.S. planes carried out a strike inside Libya on Sunday, reportedly killing a key terror figure in North Africa, U.S. and Libyan officials said.

The target was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist fighter, who is blind in one eye, affiliated with al Qaeda in North Africa, a U.S. official told CNN.

The Libyan government said Belmokhtar was killed in the strike, something that U.S. officials have not confirmed.

Federal prosecutors in New York had charged Belmokhtar in 2013 with crimes related to a brazen attack on a gas facility in Algeria were 37 hostages died. Three Americans were among the dead.

Two F-15 fighter jets dropped multiple 500-pound bombs on a hardened structure in the center of a compound, multiple U.S. defense officials told CNN.

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