Egypt takes fight across the border
CAIRO Egyptian fighter jets have carried out strikes on camps in Libya which Cairo says have been training militants who killed dozens of Christians.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he had ordered strikes yesterday against what he called terrorist camps, declaring in a televised address that states that sponsored terrorism would be punished.
Egyptian military sources said six strikes took place near Derna in eastern Libya at around sundown, hours after masked gunmen attacked a group of Coptic Christians travelling to a monastery in southern Egypt, killing 29 and wounding 24.
The Egyptian military said the operation was ongoing and had been undertaken once it had been ascertained that the camps had produced the gunmen behind the attack on the Coptic Christians in Minya, southern Egypt.
‘‘The terrorist incident that took place today will not pass unnoticed,’’ Sisi said. ‘‘We are currently targeting the camps where the terrorists are trained.’’
He said Egypt would not hesitate to carry out further strikes against camps that trained people to carry out operations against Egypt, whether those camps were inside or outside the country.
East Libyan forces said they participated in the air strikes, which had targeted forces linked to al Qaeda at a number of sites, and would be followed by a ground operation.
A resident in Derna said he heard four powerful explosions, and that the strikes had targeted camps used by fighters belonging to the Majlis al-Shura militant group.
Majlis al-Shura spokesman Mohamed al-Mansouri said in a video posted online that the Egyptian air strikes did not hit any of the group’s camps, but instead hit civilian areas.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack on the Christians, which followed a series of church bombings claimed by Islamic State in a campaign of violence against the Copts.
Isis supporters reposted videos from earlier this year urging viol- ence against the Copts in Egypt.
At a nearby village, thousands attended a funeral service that turned into an angry protest against the authorities’ failure to protect Christians. ‘‘We will avenge them or die like them,’’ mourners said, while marching with a giant wooden cross.
The attack took place on a desert road leading to the monastery of Saint Samuel the Confessor in Minya province, which is home to a sizeable Christian minority.
Witnesses said masked men opened fire after stopping the Christians, who were in a bus and other vehicles.
Witnesses said three vehicles were attacked. The first to be hit were a vehicle taking children to the monastery as part of a churchorganised trip, and another vehicle taking families there.
The gunmen boarded the vehicles and shot all the men and took all the women’s gold jewel- lery. They then shot the women and children in the legs.
When one of the gunmen’s vehicles got a flat tyre, they stopped a truck carrying Christian workers, shot them, and took the truck.
One of the gunmen recorded the attack on the Copts with a video camera, witnesses said.
Security forces launched a hunt for the attackers, setting up dozens of checkpoints and patrols on the desert road.
The injured were taken to local hospitals, and some were transported to Cairo. The Health Ministry said that among those injured were two children aged 2.
The Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Egypt’s 1000-year-old centre of Islamic learning, said the attack was intended to destabilise the country. ‘‘I call on Egyptians to unite in the face of this brutal terrorism,’’ Ahmed al-Tayeb said.
The Grand Mufti of Egypt, REUTERS Shawki Allam, condemned the perpetrators as traitors.
The head of the Coptic Christian church, Pope Tawadros, who spoke with Sisi after the attack, said it was ‘‘not directed at the Copts, but at Egypt and the heart of the Egyptians’’.
Coptic Christians, whose church dates back nearly 2000 years, make up about 10 per cent of Egypt’s population of 92 million. They say they have long suffered from persecution, but in recent months the frequency of deadly attacks against them has increased.
About 70 have been killed since December in bombings claimed by Islamic State at churches in the cities of Cairo, Alexandria and Tanta. An Islamic State campaign of murders in North Sinai prompted hundreds of Christians to flee in February and March. Reuters