France Says Belmokhtar 'Probably Dead', his Group Denies it

It is "very probable" that al-Qaida-linked militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in a U.S. air strike, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday, but he admitted he could not be sure.

Belmokhtar is an Algerian believed to have been behind a number of attacks, including the 2013 siege of an Algerian gas plant in which 38 hostages, mostly Westerners, were killed.

The militant group Belmokhtar leads, the North African Al-Murabitoun, denied he had died in a statement released Thursday through the Mauritania-based al-Akhbar news agency.

Al-Murabitoun said Belmokhtar had not been in the region of eastern Libya at the time of the strike on Sunday.

In an interview with French news channel BFMTV, Le Drian said: "We are not sure about it. There was a strike by the U.S. army which targeted a place where he was supposed to be. But I cannot confirm his death. It's very probable, but it's still not certain."

Libyan jihadist group Ansar al-Sharia has named seven people it said were killed in the strike, but said Belmokhtar was not among them.

The Pentagon has so far refused to confirm that the strike by two F-15 Strike Eagle fighter jets armed with 500-pound bombs had succeeded in killing its target.