By Walid Shoebat
It didn’t take long for Egypt to react following the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by the Islamist State jihadist group (ISIS). On Monday, Egypt’s air force bombed several ISIS targets in Libya, and announced it had killed more than 40 combatants. Photos and videos taken by people at the scene and published on social networks attest to the scale of this operation. Egypt also bombed the residence of Basheer al-Darsi, the brain behind ISIS Libya and the second highest ISIS leader. But the question many also ask: how did this mess happen? How can westerners understand the Libyan Egyptian problem? So we made a summary we titled the Libya Egypt Crisis For Dummies (more on that later).
Never pay attention to Muslims in videos who complain about civilian casualties. The ISIS leader had his arsenal in these apartment buildings. A thing ISIS never tells you and the population by large supports them. Just look at the beards and if the mustache is trimmed, they are part of the complaining crowd who not only cause the problem, but they complain when someone retaliates.
Libya’s air force also took part in these attacks, and announced it had bombed four ISIS targets in the eastern town of Derna, which has been under the control of jihadists since late October. The targets, they said, included homes used as arms depots and training centres. They notably bombed the residence of Basheer al-Darsi, he is called the brain behind ISIS Libya and the second highest ISIS leader in Libya, in the neighbourhood of Chiha in the east of Derna.
The residence of an ISIS chief was targeted in Derna.
A local resident filmed the damage caused by the strikes in the Chiha neighbourhood. In this video, you can see partially-destroyed buildings.
Libya’s air force chief, Saqr al-Djorouchi, indicated that these strikes against jihadist targets were “precise”. However, certain Libyan officials, cited anonymously by AFP, said that three children and two women were killed in these bombings. This version of events was confirmed by Libyan journalists, who published several photos on Twitter showing the bodies of three children who they say died in the bombings.
The strikes also targeted a zone called Charikat al-Jabal, which is considered to be ISIS’s headquarters in Derna.
The Libyan army says this neighbourhood of Derna was home to an IS training site. Photo by Twitter.
Libya’s air force chief declared that “more air strikes will be carried out on Tuesday in coordination with Egypt”.
This is the first time that has Egypt publicly admited its implication in strikes on Libyan territory, where government forces and Islamist militias have been fighting for months. In August 2014, Egyptian authorities were accused of carrying out similar strikes, but denied doing so.
THE LIBYA-EGYPT CRISES FOR DUMMIES
The crossroads of the central city of Tobruk in eastern Libya which Libyans called “the Egyptian market” is sort of like one of the border cities in the U.S. for migrant illegal Mexican workers looking for any work to support their poverty stricken families back in Egypt. Despite the difficult security conditions in this troubled country, despite the closure of the Egyptian border to prevent the crossing between the two countries, and just like the U.S Mexican borders, every day dozens of young Egyptians from poor provinces enter in search of jobs.
Egyptian workers move to a number of Libyan cities for employment opportunities in full swing inside of Libya, including the cities controlled by extremists like Darneh and Sirte.
During the rule of Muammar Gaddafi about two million Egyptians worked in Libya but the number dropped significantly during the armed uprising backed by NATO, and ended with the murder of Gaddafi in the fall of 2011. According to Libyan security sources there are still thousands of Egyptians working there and most refused to leave the country during the uprising events. And then the number even increased with thousands more to participate in the reconstruction work, after the situation stabilizes, but things still did not settle down.
Tobruk is the first large town located approximately 150 kilometers from the Egyptian border where there is an office in the center of Tobruk called The Office For Safe Travel, indicating where expats can transfer and guides them how to cross the borders of Egypt to the West, where the cities of Benghazi and Sirte and Tripoli are. It also refers to the possibility of transport back into Egyptian cities, namely to Marsa Matrouh, Alexandria and Cairo.
The gathering place for these migrant workers is in an area called Island of February 17 Martyrs, which is found on Palestine Street. Nasser Al-Jabri, one of the officials in Tobruk for passenger transport between Egypt and Libya and who worked in this field for nearly four years, said that “the number of arrivals from Egypt fell largely” since the abduction by extremists in western Libya of four diplomats last year. He points out that illegals crossing the Egyptian border began with “not only Egyptians, but included Syrians and Sudanese and Yemeni and Africans from different countries.”
There are no precise statistics on the number of Egyptians in Libya, but it is likely that it is close to a hundred thousand Egyptian or more. A major convoys of Egyptians returning home started in August when fighting between extremists erupted with the Libyan National Army, in which subsequently extremists who were led the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood took over the airport in the capital Tripoli including roads and crossings, especially Ras Al-Jadir on the border with Tunisia. As a result thousands of Egyptians returned to Egypt through the Saloum border crossing fleeing the battles.
Since the deterioration of the situation in Libya, the Egyptian authorities instructed Egyptians not to travel, and called on Egyptians who work in Libya to return “if they wish”.
After the announcement by ISIS of the slaughter of 21 Copts days ago, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appealed to Egyptians to return for their lives before he directs military strikes in cooperation with the Libyan military on ISIS sites near Derna and Sirte.
So the Salloum border crossing was closed officially with only limited movement in which only small numbers of Egyptians returning from Libya were allowed but as for Libyans who had the right to enter Egypt from the port for extreme medical conditions could enter Egypt for treatment as patients or if the person is getting married to an Egyptian.
Salloum border crossing
Despite all this, the Libyan border guards still run into from time to time with groups of young Egyptian men who have passed the barbwire crossing the Egyptian – Libyan border. Many are caught but some make it through. The ones caught are sent back to their homeland in coordination with the Egyptian border guards, and the arrest of other nationalities are processed in preparation for repatriation to their countries.
Not all have been arrested from Egyptian intruders who came for work, but many aspire to join the extremist Muslim militias from Syrians to Egyptian wanting to join ISIS in Darneh, which is the first city of 160 km west of Tobruk.
The majority of Egyptians who ignore the warnings from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs still look for job opportunities in the attractive oil-rich country including in the construction and electrical work, drainage and water supply, and other work related to the restoration of housing and facilities that were vandalized during the armed uprising against Gaddafi, which lasted eight months. The large number of destroyed buildings that need repair pays high wages while Egypt suffers from a huge financial debt since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
The wages of construction workers is between 20 and 30 dinars (10-15 US dollars a day) and has risen in the last year alone to $35. When one decides to go from Egypt to Libya, they take a minibus or a taxi to the nearest Egyptian – Libyan border and from there they journey walking on foot throughout the night to pass the barbed wire, land mines and guards into Libyan territory. From there another guide takes them under the guard of armed smugglers in an SUV, to the headquarters for employment in the “Egyptian Market” in Tobruk.
But the problem began when Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood who came through Egypt to join terrorists in the city of Benghazi called Hazmun some of whom joined ISIS in Syria as well. The wages for foreign fighters coming to Libya is between 100 and 500 dinars ($50-$250) per day, depending on the type of weapon they operate.
Because of the warring different factions which caused most of the oil exports to stop it paralyzed the process of transferring money between banks in different cities which crippled transportation in the late 2014. This enabled the terrorists to take over about $300 million during the bank transfers from Tripoli to Benghazi.
The problem for Egyptians to return became difficult. If you are in Tripoli, you only had two choices since Tripoli airport and Mitiga airports stopped you are left to either go to Tunisia, where there are problems and fighting between the extremists and the army or have to go east through Sirte which is controlled by ISIS and Ansar al-Sharia and so-called Dorou’ (Shields).
For those who are in Benghazi, it is a little easier; where one can transit from the southern desert road all the way to safety in Tobruk and from there to the borders of Egypt. This avoids the kidnapping and slaughter in the northern coastal road, which is located by the city of Derna, where ISIS announced its own Emirate.
ISIS did not begin in Libya out of the blue .. The story began after the killing of Gaddafi. There was a battalion run by the leaders of the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood which concentrated its presence in Benghazi which was called The February 17th Battalion. The latter split from the Muslim Brotherhood to secede and create another battalion which they called Raf-Allah Sahati. It was from this womb of this new battalion that other cadres split to form Ansar al-Sharia headed by Mohammed al-Zahawi, a radical Muslim who in his youth was a member of the Darneh musicians and was killed in the war with the army in October last year.
And because of the relationship Zahawi had in Darneh another extremist arose who had been detained in Guantanamo Bay named Sufian bin Qumu who lead Ansar al-Sharia and became a coordinator with Zahawi in the attack on the police and the army and the headquarters of state sites.
Sufian bin Qumu
After the rule of Mohamed Morsi, a group of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood began working with leaders in Benghazi and Derna with the help of the Egyptian Congress under Morsi and former Libyan parliamentarians who spend on them generously to facilitate their goals. Since that time, they began to target the Egyptians to take revenge for the Brotherhood in Cairo after Al-Sisi took over.
But, after the Muslim Brotherhood lost during the Libyan elections last summer they began to send extremists to target the Egyptians on the basis that they are supporters of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who also supports the return of the new power in Libya represented by the Parliament and the national army, led by Major General Khalifa Haftar and the government of Abdullah al-Thani.
According to Libyan security and military sources the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood began to smuggle weapons and extremists to those organizations and work to strengthen them in order to fight the new power in the country. Ansar al-Sharia which turned into a pro ISIS and the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood had to get approval for their operations from the Dorou’ forces lead by Wissam bin Humaid. Humaid participated with Zahawi in the war against the army in Benghazi and Sirte, and is one of the instigators against the Egyptians in Libya.
He oversees the extremist operations in Libya and other Muslim Brotherhood leaders, including leaders for the February 17 Battalion and the leaders of the so-called Fajr Libya (Dawn of Libya) and elements of Dorou’ (Shields) in addition to the leaders of Ansar al-Sharia who raises the banner of ISIS publicly, along with group Ansar al-Haqq (Supporters of The Right), which includes loyalists to al-Qaida run by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in the south of Libya under the name “The Third Force”.
ISIS Libya are nothing more than these groups who were led from the top leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and are under one goal, that is, to fight the Libyan army. They are centered in Darneh and the surrounding mountainous areas and valleys located in the south of the city. The other sites for these armed groups are found in at least two districts in the city of Benghazi, Qawarsheh and Sidi Faraj. These two are currently surrounded by the Libyan army. There are other groups in the town of Sabratha, near the Libyan – Tunisian border.
So what we have here is a mess, an x-Gitmo detainee, Muslim Brotherhood and Force 17, all of whom we extensively exposed during the Benghazi fiasco whom the United States supported to oust Qaddafi and we wrote about in which the United States aided and dealt with these positively. They let loose these and aided them to sprout from being locked up and even still deals with the Muslim Brotherhood causing all the mayhem in both Egypt and Libya. The end results is killing, indeed, but who? Only Muslims? No. The Christians.
And now you know why God mentions Libya and Egypt in Prophecy. You were least interested in the past. We sounded the alarm for two decades. And now that Christian blood is split, you are raising an eyebrow.
Start raising both eyebrows. Jesus is coming soon.
SOURCES
France24
Al-Shark Al-Awsat