Al-Nusra leader Mansour dies in Tripoli shootout

TRIPOLI, Libya, April 10 (UPI) -- Osama Mansour, a leader in the al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Nusra Front, was killed by authorities in a Tripoli, Libya, shootout.

Mansour and a colleague, Ahmad al-Nather, were shot Thursday as they attempted to intervene in the arrest of a third man. Two police officers were wounded in the exchange of gunfire. A statement from the Libyan government's ISF Information Branch, claimed Mansour was wearing an explosive belt at the time of his shooting, and a security source added he was carrying a fake identification card.

Mansour was a close aide to Shadi Mawlawi, a Lebanese Islamist leader and currently a fugitive, who was wanted by police for alleged plots against the Libyan army in Tripoli.

The incident came a day after the Al-Nusra Front announced one of its leading commanders, Abu Maria, died Wednesday in a car bombing allegedly conducted by the Islamic State, in Aleppo, Syria. It was one of several car bomb explosions in the area, which killed 32 people, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.