Pentagon plan to fight Islamic State in Libya includes air power

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has presented the White House with the most detailed set of military options yet for attacking the growing Islamic State threat in Libya, including a range of potential air strikes against training camps, command centers, munitions depots and other militant targets.

The scope of the military plan surprised some senior administration officials, and it drew warnings from some State Department officials that such air strikes, if not coordinated properly, could jeopardize the U.N.-led effort to forge a unity government from Libya’s fractious political actors.

The detailed military planning does expand the choices available to Obama in the coming months as he and his advisers, along with allies like Britain, France and Italy, try to manage a tricky balancing act: nurture a fragile political process to form a unity government in Libya but not wait so long that the Islamic State grows too big for defeat by a limited — and politically acceptable — military action.