Egypt’s military involvement in the anti-Islamist campaign in Libya deepens

The Egyptian officials said the operation would last between three to six months, and that an Egyptian navy vessel as a command center would be deployed off the Mediterranean coast near Tobruk to manage the operations.

The Egyptian officials noted that they are not dealing with renegade Libyan general Khalifa Hiftar, who is commanding a private army and air force and who, in the last few days, has escalated his attacks on the Islamist militias. Rather, Egypt is dealing directly with a newly appointed Libyan chief of staff who has visited Egypt several times in recent weeks.

Hifter, 71, was an army chief under Col. Qaddafi before joining the anti-regime opposition a decade ago. He helped the opposition in toppling Qaddafi, but his frustration with the deteriorating situation in Libya and the weakness of the central government led him to form his own army – and air force – consisting mostly of defectors from the Libyan military.

Qatar’s massive financial support for the Islamist militias allowed them to expand their influence in the country, and they now control most of the country’s oil-producing areas, oil terminals, and Libya’s two main cites of Tripoli and Benghazi. The Islamists have also set up their own government and revived the old parliament, in which they claim to have a majority.

The growing threat of the Islamist militias has led Hifter, in the last six months, to escalate his attacks on the Islamists, and his private army proved the most effective fighting force against them (see “General Escalates Libya Attack,” New York Times, 15 October 2014).

On Tuesday, in a televised address, Hifter announced he will resign as commander of his private army and transfer power over his military units to a young army leadership.

Libyan prime minister Abdullah al-Thinni told Dubai-based Sky News Arabia that all the troops involved in the battles in Benghazi are under the command of the new chief of staff and are instructed to restore state institutions and combat terrorism.

“After the appointment of the chief of staff for the Libyan army, all military operations are under the umbrella of the state and its military leadership,” he said.

Al-Thinni met Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi during his last visit to Egypt on 9 October. Egyptian defense minister Gen. Sedki Sobhi said during the visit that Egypt was ready to offer “all support” to the Libyan army, especially in “combating terrorism.”

Libyan lawmaker Tareq al-Jorushi told the AP that Egyptian fighter jets were taking part in the military assault on Islamist militias’ positions in and around Benghazi, but said that the planes were being flown by Libyan pilots. He said the planes were “rented” by the Libyan administration from Egypt.

ABC News notes that Al-Jorushi is about to be appointed to the Tobruk-based parliament’s national security committee. His father, Gen. Saqr al-Jorushi, is the head of Libya’s air force. Al-Jorushi’s claims could not be verified.

Egypt has publicly announced it was recognizing, and supporting, the elected Libyan administration, which is now based in Tobruk after escaping Tripoli. Egypt made no secret of its view that the presence of Qatar- and Turkey-supported Jihadists and other Islamist extremist elements near its western border was a direct national security threat to Egypt, and also made no secret of its plan to offer military support, including troop training, to the Tobruk-based government.

As the Times notes, Egypt’s growing direct military involvement in Libya has turned that country into yet another theater of a proxy war for broader regional battles, with Qatar and Turkey supporting the extremist Islamist militias while Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates backing the militias’ opponents.

Analysts say that the escalating campaign against the Islamists, a campaign which now involves the direct participation of Egypt, may well be a signal that the anti-Islamist forces in Libya – and the region – have decided to begin a concerted effort to evict the Islamist militias from the country’s large cities, oil fields, oil terminals, and other positions from which they can prevent the emergence of a functioning central Libyan government.

The Wednesday operation appeared to be well-coordinated. Warplanes struck camps of several Islamist militias fighting under an umbrella coalition called the Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries. Armed men have set up checkpoints and cordoned off their neighborhoods to prevent Islamist militias from using these neighborhoods to attack army units.

In August U.S. officials confirmed that Egypt and the UAE conducted a series of airstrikes against Islamist militia positions in and near Tripoli. On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she was not in a position to confirm Egypt’s Wednesday air strikes, but that such a move would raise concerns for the United States.

“Broadly speaking, we would be concerned about outside interference in Libya, which is consistent with the communiques we’ve signed onto,” she said.

Wednesday attacks in Libya by the Egyptian air force followed the late-August air strikes by Egypt and UAE. These were not the first military operations by outside anti-Islamist forces. Since May 2014, UAE commando units, operating out of Egyptian military bases in western Egypt, have destroyed several Islamist targets in Libya, including a camp in eastern Libya.

As we wrote last August, the growing military involvement of Egypt and UAE in the campaign against the Qatar- and Turkey-supported Islamist militias in Libya is one more indication that

after two years of introspection and confusion, the moderate forces in the Arab world have begun to assert themselves in an effort to gain a measure of control over post-Arab Spring developments in the region.
The airstrikes by Egypt and UAE against Libya’s Islamist militias [in late August, and on Wednesday] are thus an intensification of the regional campaign, led by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, to confront and defeat the Qatar- and Turkey-supported Islamist forces in the region.