Egyptian warplanes struck Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targets in Libya on Monday, just hours after the extremist group released a grisly video showing the beheading of several Egyptian Coptic Christians it had held hostage for weeks.
An armed forces spokesman announced the strikes on state radio, marking the first time Cairo has publicly acknowledged taking military action in neighbouring Libya, where extremist groups seen as a threat to both countries have exploited the chaos following the 2011 uprising against dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The statement said the warplanes targeted weapons caches and training camps before returning safely. It said the “intense strikes” were “to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers.”
“Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield to protect and safeguard the security of the country and a sword that amputates terrorism and extremism,” it said.
Egypt is already battling a burgeoning Islamist insurgency centred in the strategic Sinai Peninsula, where militants have recently declared their allegiance to ISIS and rely heavily on arms smuggled across the porous desert border between Egypt and Libya.
The strikes also come just a month before Egypt is scheduled to host a major donor’s conference at a Sinai resort to attract foreign investment needed to revive the economy after more than four years of turmoil.
Libya’s air force commander, Saqr al-Joroushi, told Egyptian state TV that the airstrikes were co-ordinated with the Libyan side and that they killed about 50 militants. Separately, A Libyan security official reached by The Associated Press by telephone said the Egyptian warplanes struck four IS positions in the eastern city of Darna, an extremist stronghold that was taken over by an ISIS affiliate last year.
Two Libyan security officials said civilians, including three children and two women, were killed in the strikes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Libya’s air force meanwhile said it had carried out its own strikes in Darna, without providing further details.
Relatives and neighbours of Egyptian Coptic Christians captured in Libya and killed by militants affiliated with the Islamic State group gather outside of the Church of the Virgin Mary in the village of el-Aour, near Minya, Egypt for prayers to be held in the church. (Roger Anis, El Shorouk Newspaper/Associated Press)
The video purporting to show the mass beheading of the Coptic Christian hostages was released late Sunday by militants in Libya affiliated with ISIS.
The killings raise the possibility that the extremist group — which controls about a third of Syria and Iraq in a self-declared caliphate — has established an affiliate less than 800 kilometres from the southern tip of Italy. One of the militants in the video said the group now plans to “conquer Rome.”
The militants had been holding 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian labourers rounded up from the coastal city of Sirte in December and January. It was not clear from the video whether all 21 hostages were killed.
It was one of the first beheading videos from an ISISI affiliate to come from outside the group’s core territory in Syria and Iraq, and displayed the sophisticated techniques used in previous videos.
