By Walid Shoebat (Shoebat Exclusive)
When President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in a televised address late Sunday night he gave a week of mourning and vowed that his country would take action to avenge the killings in due time “Egypt preserves the right to respond, with the appropriate manner and timing, in order to carry out retribution on those killers”.
But as it seems, Egypt in a surprise response, broke the seven day period of silence and took action while the metal is still hot. The Egyptian military today carried out an airstrike in Libya in retaliation for the beheading of more than a dozen Egyptian Christians by a branch of the Islamic State extremist group there. Egypt announced the attack and showed the results:
The statement from the Egyptian military stated:
“The proud people of Egypt: in accordance to the implementation of the decisions of the Council of our National Defense in defending the security and stability of our great nation, and to pay retribution and to respond to the criminal acts by terrorist organizations inside and outside the country, your armed forces at dawn on Monday, 16/2 directed a targeted air strike against the stationing and training areas and warehouses of weapons and ammunition for the terrorist organization Daash in the Libyan territory camps.
The strike has achieved its objectives accurately and returned to our air force bases intact. Praise be to God. This, in stressing that the revenge for the blood of the Egyptian people and for the retribution from the killers and criminals we have a duty to apply force. It teaches the aggressor that the Egyptians have a shield to protect and safeguard the country’s security, and a sword to amputate terrorism and extremism.
May God protect Egypt and its great people and inspire the people of the patience of our martyrs.”
Strangely, Egypt, a Muslim country recognizes the martyrdom of the Copts while the U.S. refused to call them martyrs or even to mention the Copts: “The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists.”
The Foreign Ministry of Egypt 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.
The 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.
“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.
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.
Didn’t the White House listen to the last words of 21 Egyptian copts? Ya Rabbi Yasou’, (My Lord Jesus) from their pure lips?
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 or what the media has been saying.
Shoebat.com had been warning of the allegiance by so many terror groups to ISIS while western media differentiated between Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis in the Sinai and ISIS or Ansar Al-Sharia in Libya and ISIS. They are all cut from the same cloth: the Islamic revolution and Al-Sisi gets it while western media doesn’t.
Shoebat.com reported all across the Muslim world, ISIS has magnetized a litany of major terrorist organizations to give the Bay’at (allegiance) and join under ISIS such as Jund al-Khilafah (Soldiers of the Caliphate, In North Africa), Ansar al-Shariah (Libya), Taliban (Pakistan), The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (Pakistan’s North Waziristan), Al-Tawhid Battalion (Pakistan, Afghanistan), Al-Nusra (Lebanon), Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen), Ansar al-Tawhid in the Land of Hind (India), Anṣār Bayt al-Maqdis (Sinai) and Jund al-Khilafah (Egypt).
While Al-Nusra gave allegiance they broke off, but this is temporary unless the west realizes on how to cause these divisions to continue.
And while Egypt stands against terror, the U.S. allies with the enemy Turk while going against Egypt.
Are the Turks attacking ISIS, or did Egypt’s airstrikes on Monday threatened to draw it further into the Libyan conflict? Is Turkey helping Egypt or ISIS? So why is Turkey an “ally” while Egypt is only receiving Obama’s bashings demanding them to play nice with Muhammad Morsi? Is it not true that Al-Qaeda is an extension of the Muslim Brotherhood? And is it not true that ISIS is an extension of Al-Qaeda? What is our moral compass, I am confused.
Egypt is caught between Islamists and western rejection while surrounded by terror from all sides.
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.
The United States rejected 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.
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 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.
SOURCES
New York Times