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Egypt Conducts Airstrikes on Islamic State Targets in Libya Egypt Launches Strikes in Libya on ISIS Branch
(about 3 hours later)
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. CAIRO — Egypt conducted an airstrike against an Islamist stronghold in Libya on Monday in retaliation for the beheading of at least a dozen Egyptian Christians by a local franchise of the Islamic State, in Cairo’s deepest reach yet into the chaos that has engulfed its neighbor.
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. The Foreign Ministry said that Egyptian warplanes had struck Derna, a town in eastern Libya that is a hub of Islamist militancy. It is also close to the Egyptian border, well within the range of the jets. Hinting at possible further action, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt said in a statement that he had convened “a continuous session” of his National Defense Council to monitor events in Libya and to weigh additional measures. But the strike itself, hitting in the Libyan town of Derna at dawn, was a new turn in the breakdown of regional order in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolts and the Islamic State’s emergence.
The airstrikes represent a significant 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 which are made up of Islamist extremists. Nearly three and a half years after the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, two rival coalitions of militias are battling for control over Libya and its vast resources, including nearly $100 billion in financial reserves, untapped oil deposits, and a long Mediterranean coast facing Europe. In the absence of any effective government or even a dominant force, a multifaceted proxy war has erupted as rival Arab states back competing militias and extremist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State seek to expand their operations.
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. Mr. Sisi, a former general who led the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president in 2013, has watched with growing concern as a coalition of moderate Islamists, extremists and regional militias seized control of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, last year and set up their own provisional government.
“Egypt reserves 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. Together with the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Sisi has covertly backed a rival coalition that has coalesced around a Libyan general’s campaign to drive out the Islamist and regional militias. Last summer, Egypt provided bases for jets from the United Arab Emirates to launch at least two airstrikes against Islamist forces in Tripoli, Western officials have said, although neither country has publicly acknowledged its role.
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.” Egypt’s strikes on Monday now threaten to drag it deeper into Libya’s messy internal conflict at a time when Cairo is already straining to revive a battered economy and suppress its own domestic Islamist insurgency — centered in the Sinai Peninsula but now also fighting under the banner of the Islamic State.
“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 F-16s taking off in the dark as the statement was read on the air. In this new theater, Egypt is highly vulnerable to potential counterattacks by Islamist forces in part because of its long and porous desert border with Libya but also because of the continued presence of large numbers of Egyptian citizens inside Libya. Egyptian workers often seek employment in oil-rich Libya, and a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said Monday that “hundreds of thousands” remained inside the country.
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 generals seized power from President Hosni Mubarak four years ago. For its part, the Islamic State may consider Egypt’s entry into the Libyan battle a strategic success, analysts said, in part because the extremists seek to capitalize on the spreading chaos.
“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.” “They want to stretch the Egyptian military because they are fighting in the Sinai, too,” said Aaron Y. Zelin, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who tracks the group.
The leader of the Libyan air forces for the anti-Islamist faction, Saqer al-Joroshi, appeared on Egyptian state television and estimated that the strikes had killed “not less than 40 or 50” people. He argued that the extremists would rally local support against Egypt’s military interference — especially if its airstrikes hit civilians — but also that the Islamic State had built its ideology on cultivating such enemies.
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. “They see it as proof that God is on their side, that even as all these forces are arrayed against us, we are ‘remaining and expanding,’ as their saying goes,” he said. “This is red meat for their base of supporters.”
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. A similar dynamic unfolded this month when Jordan carried out days of bombing raids against the Islamic State in Syria in retaliation for its videotaped immolation of a captured Jordanian pilot.
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. Egyptian militants, including the self-proclaimed Sinai Province of the Islamic State, have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen in the 18 months since Mr. Sisi took power, killing as many as three dozen Egyptians in one night of coordinated bombings at the end of January.
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. But the events that led to Egypt’s bombing on Monday began several weeks ago with the disappearance of about 20 Egyptian Christians working in the mid-coastal Libyan city of Surt.
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. Fighters identifying themselves as the Tripolitania Province of the Islamic State — adopting the name of one of the three traditional provinces based on Ottoman-era divisions — released a photograph last month showing that they had captured the Egyptian “crusaders.”
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. Then on Sunday night, the media arm of the central Islamic State group released a video headlined, “A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross,” which appeared to show at least a dozen of those hostages being paraded along a rocky Mediterranean beach in western Libya.
Egypt’s airstrikes on Monday drew 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. All wore orange jumpsuits and were escorted by a row of masked fighters dressed in black with ceremonial knives at their chests — details identical to previous Islamic State videos. After a short speech delivered in fluent English by the lead executioner, the fighters forced their captives to the ground, sawed through their necks and let their blood darken the waves.
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. In a televised address later Sunday night, Mr. Sisi declared that “Egypt preserves the right to respond, in the appropriate manner and timing, to exact retribution.”
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. In state news media reports issued Monday at around 8:30 a.m., the Egyptian military said its F-16 fighters had struck camps, training facilities and weapons depots belonging to the Islamic State in Libya. A statement from the military called the attack “a response to the criminal acts of terrorist elements and organizations inside and outside the country.”
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. “We stress that revenge for the blood of Egyptians, and retribution from the killers and criminals, is a right we must dutifully enforce,” the military said, and Egyptian state television showed footage of the F-16s taking off in the dark as the statement was read on the air.
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 military statement did not disclose the location of the strikes. But a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Badr Abdelatty, later confirmed news reports that the jets had hit Derna, Libya, where some portion of the local Islamist fighters have declared themselves the Barqa Province of the Islamic State.
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. Although far from Tripolitania Province, where the Islamic State group that killed the Egyptian Christians is from, Derna is close enough to the border for Egypt’s jets to reach it easily without having to refuel en route. Western officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, noted that none of the three Islamic State “provinces” was open or visible enough to easily target, suggesting that even a prolonged campaign of airstrikes might do little harm to the groups.
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 President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in June 2013, and Egyptian officials say they believe that the militants move across the porous border with Libya to obtain weapons and support. But the strikes drew applause from Libya’s internationally recognized government, which relocated from the capital around the time it was taken over by an Islamist-allied militia and now sits near the Egyptian border in a town under the protection of Gen. Khalifa Hifter, who is leading the fight against the Islamists.
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. “Egypt has helped us as we requested,” Col. Saqer al-Joroshi, a commander under General Hifter, said by telephone in an interview with an Egyptian television network. Mr. Joroshi estimated that the strikes had killed “not less than 40 or 50” people.
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. The Islamist-allied coalition, which calls itself Libya Dawn and has established a provisional government in Tripoli, sought to deny that the Islamic State executions had taken place, reinforcing criticisms that the coalition willingly collaborates with such violent extremists.
Although Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have not publicly acknowledged the airstrikes last year, officials of the internationally recognized government have said 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. In a statement, the Libya Dawn government dismissed the execution video as “a Hollywood film” contrived by its opponents. It called Mr. Sisi a “terrorist criminal and murderer,” and charged that the Egyptian airstrikes in Derna had killed civilians. (Mr. Joroshi said no civilians had been killed; his assertion could not be verified.)
In an apparent threat, the same statement also warned all Egyptians to leave Libya within 48 hours, “to preserve their safety from any revenge attacks.”
Mr. Badr, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Egypt had established an emergency consular services center to help Egyptians caught inside Libya get to safe havens or return to Egypt.
The United States and its allies have tried to draw the Libyan factions into negotiations to form a unity government and dissuade them from demanding the complete military defeat of their opponents before any such talks.
Western officials have previously argued that military escalations such as Egypt’s bombing on Monday pose obstacles to a negotiated, political solution, but some have also acknowledged Egypt’s right to respond to an attack on its civilians. A State Department representative declined to comment.
In a statement, Mr. Sisi said he had dispatched Egypt’s foreign minister to New York and Washington “to ensure that the international community lives up to its responsibilities,” because Libya had now become “a threat to international peace and security.”