[Preliminary reports on
social media indicated that the strikes had hit the city of Derna, in eastern
Libya, a hub of Islamist militancy with its own separate Islamic State
“province.” Unlike locations in the Western province of Tripolitania, Derna is
close enough to Egypt to avoid complications like the potential need for jets
to refuel during their trip.]
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An
image taken from a state-run television channel Al-Masriya broadcast
after
Egypt conducted airstrikes against Islamic Statetargets
in Libya on Monday.
Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
|
CAIRO — The Egyptian military
said on Monday that it had carried out airstrikes in Libya in
retaliation for the beheading of
more than a dozen Egyptian Christians by a branch of the Islamic State
extremist group there.
In a statement Monday
morning, the Egyptian military said that it had conducted airstrikes at dawn
against training camps and arms depots of the Islamic State group in Libya, but
it did not provide further details about the targets.
The airstrikes are a
dramatic escalation of Egypt’s
role in the continuing battle between armed factions in Libya for control of
the country. With the backing of the United Arab Emirates, Egypt has worked
covertly to support a Libyan general who is fighting to take
back the capital and much of the coast from a rival coalition of militia
groups, some of them made up of Islamist extremists.
In a televised address late
Sunday night, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt vowed that his country
would take action to avenge the killings.
“Egypt preserves the
right to respond, with the appropriate manner and timing, in order to carry out
retribution on those killers and criminals who are stripped of the most basic
of human values,” Mr. Sisi said.
The Egyptian military
said in a statement issued around 8.30 a.m. that the dawn strikes were
“retribution and response to the criminal acts of terrorist elements and
organizations inside and outside the country.”
“We stress that revenge
for the blood of Egyptians, and retribution from the killers and criminals, is
a right we must dutifully enforce,” the statement said. Egyptian state
television showed footage of jets taking off in the dark as the statement was
read over the air.
The broadcast then showed
a video
montage of jets, soldiers, tanks and warships, all set against
a soaring musical score. It was narrated by a deep male voice, familiar to
those who heard military announcements when the generals seized power from
President Hosni Mubarak four years ago.
“Honor, nation,” the
narrator says. “This is the slogan of men who ask for death as a sacrifice for
the nation. They are men who do not know the meaning of impossible. They
penetrate rocks and mountains, and they challenge difficulties. They race each
other for martyrdom, on land, sea and air. Their life is a heroic epic, and
their martyrdom a sacrifice for dignity and a pride for Egypt.”
The leader of the Libyan
air forces for the anti-Islamist faction, Saqer al-Joroushi, appeared on
Egyptian state television and estimated that the strikes had killed “not less
than 40 or 50” people.
Preliminary reports on
social media indicated that the strikes had hit the city of Derna, in eastern
Libya, a hub of Islamist militancy with its own separate Islamic State
“province.” Unlike locations in the Western province of Tripolitania, Derna is
close enough to Egypt to avoid complications like the potential need for jets
to refuel during their trip.
Egypt’s air assault came
less than 12 hours after the main Islamic State group released a video online
that appeared to show fighters from the group’s self-proclaimed Tripolitania
Province beheading more than a dozen Egyptian Christians.
The Christians were among
the thousands of Egyptians who routinely travel across the border to Libya to
find work in its oil-rich economy, forging a deep connection between the two
neighboring states. About 20 Egyptian Christians disappeared around the coastal
city of Surt weeks ago, and last month, the Tripolitania Province released a
picture showing that it had captured them.
The video of their beheadings
Sunday night aroused special horror in Egypt and beyond because it was filmed
with the theatrical brutality that has become a trademark of the Islamic State.
Released under the logo
of the Islamic State’s media arm and with the title “A Message Signed With
Blood to the Nation of the Cross,” the video appeared to show a row of masked
fighters dressed in black and with ceremonial knives at their chests parading
more than a dozen captives in orange jumpsuits along a Mediterranean beach in
western Libya.
Speaking in English, the
lead executioner proclaimed in the video that the fighters were part of the
larger Islamic State group fighting in Syria, warned that they would allow no
safety to “crusaders,” invoked the American military’s burial at sea of Osama
bin Laden and alluded to apocalyptic prophecies about a coming battle for Rome.
The fighters then forced their captives to the ground, sawed through their
necks, and let the blood darken the waves.
The video appeared to
show a greater degree of communication and collaboration between the Islamic
State and its Libyan satellite group than Western officials had previously
known.
Egypt’s airstrikes on
Monday threatened to draw it further into the Libyan conflict. Islamist
fighters in Libya could now seek to stage attacks across the long, lightly
patrolled desert border with Egypt, or to increase their support for allied
Egyptian militants already attempting to foment an insurgency here.
The Egyptian military
gave no indication on Monday of whether the airstrikes were a one-time
punishment for the killing of its citizens or the beginning of a more prolonged
military effort.
The leaders of Libya’s
internationally recognized government welcomed the Egyptian retaliation. That
government has relocated to the Libyan cities of Tobruk and Bayda, not far from
the Egyptian border, and has allied itself with the general fighting against
the Islamist factions.
At least three different
groups of militants inside Libya have proclaimed themselves so-called provinces
of the Islamic State, mainly through online messages and videos. Their leaders
and locations are unknown.
Supporters of
anti-Islamist factions inside Libya have increasingly used the Arabic acronym
for the Islamic State to refer to all of their opponents, whether extremists,
more moderate groups, or less ideological local and tribal militias who are
merely allied with the Islamists.
The blurring of the terms
for the purpose of propaganda against the Islamist-allied forces now increases
the uncertainty about which positions Egypt might have sought to attack.
Mr. Sisi, a former
general who led the military ouster of the Islamist president here 18 months
ago, has made it clear since then that he views the chaos in Libya as a danger
to Egypt’s own stability. Mr. Sisi’s government has struggled to suppress a
festering Islamist insurgency set off after the military removed former
President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Egyptian officials say
they believe that the militants move across the porous border with Libya to
obtain weapons and support.
Last summer, Egypt
provided bases for jets from the United Arab Emirates to launch at least two
airstrikes targeting Islamist-allied militias in the Libyan capital, Tripoli,
when they were fighting for control of the city.
That was before those
militias successfully took the capital and Libya broke into two rival
coalitions, each with its own prime minister and government. The
internationally recognized government has moved to the east, and the
Islamist-allied factions have set up their own provisional government in
Tripoli.
Although Egypt and the
United Arab Emirates have not publicly acknowledged the airstrikes last year,
officials of the internationally recognized government have said that Egypt has
continued to play a crucial role in their fight. In interviews last month, they
said that Egypt had helped repair and supply a small air force that has been
their greatest advantage against the Islamist forces.
Merna Thomas contributed
reporting.
