Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi yesterday urged the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution allowing for an international military intervention in troubled Libya.
“There is no other choice. Taking into account that the Libyan people must agree that we act to restore security and stability,” al-Sisi said in an interview with French radio Europe 1.
He said that Egyptian airstrikes against Islamic State group positions in Libya on Monday were in self-defense.
Photo: Reuters
“We will not allow them to cut off the heads of our children,” al-Sisi said. “We need to do it, but together to stop the threat in Libya.”
Al-Sisi has repeatedly called for some kind of global intervention in Libya, which has been wracked by conflict since the overthrow of then-Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.
Chaos in Libya has seen rival governments and powerful militias battling for control of key cities and the country’s vast oil riches, and has provided fertile ground for the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The Egyptian air strikes against Islamic State camps and weapons stores in Derna, Libya, came just hours after the militants released a gruesome video showing masked militants beheading 21 Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach.
Egypt said a “tough intervention” was needed, and with its air strikes, Cairo opened a new front against the militants.
Cairo is already battling militants in the Sinai Peninsula, where scores of troops have been killed since the army toppled former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
Witnesses said there were at least seven strikes in Derna.
Libyan air force head Saqr al-Jaroushi told an Egyptian broadcaster at least 50 people were killed, a toll which could not be confirmed, and that Libyan warplanes also targeted the militants.
It was the first time Egypt announced military action against Islamist targets in Libya.
Experts say that by targeting Islamic State with air strikes in Libya, al-Sisi has become a key ally of the West against group, despite international condemnation of his crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood.
The militants have been hammered by US-led air strikes in Iraq and Syria after taking over swathes of the two countries, and the group has active affiliates in Egypt and Libya.
Bombing Islamic State targets in Libya will now show al-Sisi’s resolve to counter a wider Islamist threat in the region, said H.A. Hellyer, Arab affairs expert at Washington-based Brookings Institute.
The killing of the Christians, who like thousands of Egyptians had travelled abroad to seek work, shocked their compatriots.
“Revenge is on the way,” read the front-page banner of the official al-Akhbar newspaper.
Both the Coptic Church and the prestigious Islamic al-Azhar institution condemned the attack.
In the village of al-Our in Upper Egypt, where 14 of the victims were from, devastated family members gathered in church.
“My son travelled to Libya 40 days ago, he wanted to make money for his marriage,” Boshra said of his 22-year-old son, Kirollos.
Egyptian television repeatedly played the video without the beheadings, showing black-clad militants leading their captives in orange jumpsuits along a beach before forcing them to kneel.
Additional reporting by AP
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