The Egyptian Air Force has targeted militant camps in Libya in retaliation for the deadly attack on a bus carrying Coptic Christians, which left at least 28 dead and 24 injured.
27 May 2017
Egypt’s armed forces have successfully completed the destruction of all planned targets abroad, including militant concentration areas and training camps, Egypt’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Egyptian military have continued air strikes in Libya targeting militant training camps, state TV reported, as cited by Reuters. The Egyptian media has provided no exact locations however, the news agency notes
Crowds came to grieve those killed in a deadly attack on Friday. Mourners holding wooden crosses attended the funeral service at the Abu Garnous Cathedral in Minya.
Footage of the airstrikes was released online, allegedly showing the Egyptian jets attacking targets around the Libyan coastal city of Derna. A few strikes were recorded with plumes of smoke rising up in the sky. A crater left by one of the missile strikes is also shown in the video.
26 May 2017
Eastern Libyan forces led by close Egyptian ally, Khalifa Haftar, said they “participated” in the airstrikes on terrorist positions in the city of Derna, Reuters reports citing the air force's media office.
Derna residents heard at least four powerful explosions, witness told the agency, adding, that the strikes apparently targeted the Mujahideen Shura camps.
The Egyptian strike on terrorist positions in Libya is “not unprecedented,” retired US Air Force Colonel Karen Kwiatkowsi told RT, recalling a similar retaliatory strike in 2015.
“The timing is important. It certainly connects to what Donald Trump’s trip has been about,” Kwiatkowsi said. “In some ways it is a response to the new American president, even though the American policies have not changed much in the past 15 or so years… Sisi has definitely connected this with some of the things that Donald Trumps has been saying both in Washington and on his trip just recently to Saudi Arabia.”
The Egyptian strikes targeted and “completely destroyed” the main center of the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Derna in Libya, Arabic media report.
Egyptian military released a short video, confirming that the strikes were carried out on terrorists in Libya “after confirming their involvement in planning and committing the terrorist attack in Minya governorate on Friday.”
US President Donald Trump has condemned the attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians denouncing the “evil organizations of terror” and their “depraved, twisted, and thuggish ideology.”
Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon official, also believes that Washington likely provided Cairo with intelligence and the coordinates for the air raid.
“Al Sisi takes any attack from terrorists like this as very important,” Maloof said. “He probably also received intelligence from the Unites States that helped pinpoint locations.”
“Having Egypt undertake this kind of response sends an important message to [the terrorists] that Egypt is not fooling around any longer, and there will be response,” the expert emphasized.
“Libya still remains a very important jump off point. In fact, ISIS one time saw Libya as their base for the continent of Africa,” Maloof added.
The Egyptian air campaign in Libya should focus not only on militants, but also on those entities which support terrorists, Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire told RT.
“Identifying the states and the entities within these states who are arming and financing and providing all types of diplomatic and political cover for these organizations to continue to operate in this fashion” must be one of Egypt’s priorities when in its battle against extremists, Azikiwe said.
“We do know that Libya has become a base for instability throughout North Africa and even beyond to West Africa and of course into Europe as Well,” he added.
Egypt is ready to continue fighting terrorists regardless of their location, the country’s President Abdel Fattah Sisi said in a televised speech on Friday. He also reiterated that the countries financing, training and otherwise supporting terrorists should not get away unpunished.
“Egypt will not hesitate in striking any camps that harbor or train terrorist elements whether inside Egypt or outside Egypt,” the al-Ahram news agency quoted Sisi as saying.
Egypt conducted six air strikes in Derna in eastern Libya late Friday following the deadly morning attack on a bus carrying Coptic Christians, which left at least 28 dead and 23 wounded, state media reports.