TRIPOLI: A Libyan jihadi group denied Tuesday that Al-Qaeda-linked militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar– the man behind multiple deadly attacks with a history of coming back from the dead – was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

Ansar al-Shariah named seven people it said were killed in the strike in eastern Libya, but Belmokhtar, who Washington has said was the target, was not among them.

“No other person was killed,” the group, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, said in a statement.

Belmokhtar is the leader of the North African Al-Murabitoun militant group and a former chief of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

He allegedly masterminded the 2013 siege of an Algerian gas plant in which 38 hostages, mostly Westerners, were killed.

Libya’s internationally recognized government claimed Sunday that Belmokhtar – who has been reported dead on several previous occasions – had been killed in the U.S. airstrike.

The Pentagon had itself been noncommittal about whether the airstrike by two F-15 Strike Eagle fighter jets armed with 500-pound bombs had been successful in killing its target.

U.S. Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said: “The actual impact of that raid is still being assessed.”

Libya said that the U.S. airstrike had been carried out in coordination with its internationally recognized government.

Libya’s LANA news agency cited a government official as saying jets targeted a farm south of Ajdabiya, some 160 kilometers west of Benghazi, as Belmokhtar met leaders of other extremist groups including Ansar al-Shariah.

The organization has ambiguous ties to ISIS, which has a growing presence in the oil-rich north African nation.

An Algerian security source told AFP that authorities in Algiers had received no confirmation of the militant’s death or request to identify his remains.