PEACE campaigners warned against a return to war in Libya yesterday after the US killed 41 people in air raids.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said US F-15 jets flying from bases in Europe had bombed a suspected Islamic State (Isis) training camp near the western Libyan town of Sabratha early yesterday.

A witness in the city said he heard two explosions at 3.30am coming from the nearby village of Qasr Talel. He said a house belonging to Abdel-Hakim al-Mashawat, known locally as an Isis militant, was targeted.

The Sabratha city council put the death toll at over 40 with more wounded, some critically.

“There are torn body parts buried under the rubble,” it said in a posting, adding that not all the victims were Libyans.

Mr Cook confirmed that one of those targeted was Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian national, and “an Isis senior facilitator in Libya associated with the training camp.”

He said Tunisian officials suspected Mr Chouchane of taking part in the March 18 2015 shooting massacre at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis that left 24 people, mostly tourists, dead.

Earlier yesterday, anonymous US government sources had told the New York Times that Mr Chouchane was believed — but not confirmed — to have been killed.

In recent weeks Washington has sought support from Nato and other Arab nations for a new military intervention in the country, which has been prey to Islamist militants since Nato overthrew its government in 2011.

British, French, Italian and US special forces are operating in the country and the US bombed suspected targets in November.

But US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said last week that Washington would “keep open the option to do things unilaterally.”

British Peace Assembly (BPA) co-ordinator Liz Payne condemned the bombing.

“This represents an expansion of the militarisation of the region. The current lawlessness in Libya is a direct result of the action of the US and its allies and the vacuum created by the removal of the elected government of Libya in 2011,” she said.

Ms Payne said the BPA reiterated that the international community must act through the UN to defeat terrorism and do everything possible to bring peace to north Africa and the Middle East.

“Unilateral military actions have no place in the process and Britain must do nothing to aid or abet them.”

Stop the War Coalition spokesman Chris Nineham called for an immediate end to attacks on Libya.

“The last assault on Libya in 2011 left 40,000 dead and a failed state which fast became a haven for terrorists,” he added.

And anti-nuclear arms campaigners CND chair Kate Hudson said: “Repeating the same failed policy and expecting a different outcome is sheer folly and the US’s current action in Libya is to be deplored.”

Libya, once the most prosperous nation in Africa, has descended into chaos since Gadaffi was overthrown by Nato-backed rebels.

Since then Libya has been divided between the Western-backed government Council of Deputies in the eastern city of Tobruk and the New General National Congress in the capital Tripoli.

Negotiations in Tunisia towards a unity government have repeatedly stalled.