Egypt strikes militants in Libya after deadly attack on Christians

Egypt’s armed forces have successfully completed the destruction of all planned targets abroad, including militant concentration areas and training camps, Egypt’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Egyptian military have continued air strikes in Libya targeting militant training camps, state TV reported, as cited by Reuters. The Egyptian media has provided no exact locations however, the news agency notes

Crowds came to grieve those killed in a deadly attack on Friday. Mourners holding wooden crosses attended the funeral service at the Abu Garnous Cathedral in Minya.

Footage of the airstrikes was released online, allegedly showing the Egyptian jets attacking targets around the Libyan coastal city of Derna. A few strikes were recorded with plumes of smoke rising up in the sky. A crater left by one of the missile strikes is also shown in the video.

Eastern Libyan forces led by close Egyptian ally, Khalifa Haftar, said they “participated” in the airstrikes on terrorist positions in the city of Derna, Reuters reports citing the air force's media office.

Derna residents heard at least four powerful explosions, witness told the agency, adding, that the strikes apparently targeted the Mujahideen Shura camps.

The Egyptian strike on terrorist positions in Libya is “not unprecedented,” retired US Air Force Colonel Karen Kwiatkowsi told RT, recalling a similar retaliatory strike in 2015.

“The timing is important. It certainly connects to what Donald Trump’s trip has been about,” Kwiatkowsi said. “In some ways it is a response to the new American president, even though the American policies have not changed much in the past 15 or so years… Sisi has definitely connected this with some of the things that Donald Trumps has been saying both in Washington and on his trip just recently to Saudi Arabia.”

The Egyptian strikes targeted and “completely destroyed” the main center of the Shura Council of the Mujahideen of Derna in Libya, Arabic media report.

Egyptian military released a short video, confirming that the strikes were carried out on terrorists in Libya “after confirming their involvement in planning and committing the terrorist attack in Minya governorate on Friday.”

US President Donald Trump has condemned the attack on Egypt’s Coptic Christians denouncing the “evil organizations of terror” and their “depraved, twisted, and thuggish ideology.”