Egypt Launches a Major Offensive Against Islamic State

On Feb. 9, 2018, Egyptian army spokesman Col. Tamer El Refai announced that the Egyptian armed forces had launched the largest-ever offensive against Islamic terror groups in Sinai, the Nile Delta and the western desert close to the Libyan border.

The Egyptian air force quickly carried out around 30 air strikes south and west of the Rafah and Sheikh Zweid areas, as well as in northern and central Sinai. The day before the beginning of Operation Sinai 2018, Cairo ordered a state of emergency at hospitals in northwest Sinai. Security measures were in place at schools and government buildings.

This is not the first time that Egyptian government has announced a “final” operation against terrorists. The offensives have never yielded the results officials predict. On the contrary, terror attacks have increased in number and intensity.

Egypt Launches a Major Offensive Against Islamic State - Don't expect the terrorists to surrender

Egypt Has Joined the Air War in Libya

On May 26, 2017, armed men traveling in pickup trucks gunned down 28 Coptic Christians and wounded 26 as the Christians were on their way to visit a monastery in Egypt’s Minya province. Islamic State has claimed its responsibility for the attack. That same evening, Egypt announced that its air force had carried out six air raids on ISIS camps near the Libyan city of Derna. Cairo suspects that the Derna Mujahideen Shura Council, an Al-Qaeda-affiliated coalition of Islamist militias that formed in December 2014, supported the murders.

The strikes involved F-16C/D Block 52s covered by at least two Rafales. Weirdly, the Egyptian government posted a video supposed illustrating the operation, but the footage actually depicts a later strike on the city of Hun.

Egypt Has Joined the Air War in Libya - The skies are getting crowded

My publication in May 2017

Two publications in May 2017 : in DSI issue No.129, I talk about the engagement of Egyptian and Emirati Air Forces in Libya with a focus on the UAE deployment at al-Khadim airbase; I have also written a short piece about the latest batch of four F-16IQs delivered to Iraqi Air Force in Issue No.350 of Air Forces Monthly magazine

How Emirati/Egyptian air power turned Haftar's Libyan oil ports disaster to victory

On 14 March, General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army launched a counterattack against the fighters of the Saraya Defend Benghazi and the Petroleum Facilities Guard coalition, which had managed to take most of the coastal cities near the oil terminals 10 days earlier.

This lightning counter-offensive has left observers skeptical. How could an army have lost an entire region in a few days - and then recovered it so quickly?

How Emirati air power turned Haftar's Libyan oil ports disaster to victory

Confirmed : Libyan cadets graduated in Egypt in July 2016 now fly for Marshall Haftar

On 20 July 2016, 110 cadets were graduated from the Egyptian air force academy after three years of study. Among them, thirty-five were Libyan as I revealed on War Is Boring. Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi awarded medals to the first graduates from Egypt and the State of Palestine, Kuwait, Libya, Sudan and South Sudan. And on July 29, 2016, the Libyan military attaché in Egypt honored the top Libyan officers graduating from the Egyptian army, navy and air force academies. Egypt supports Haftar’s Tobruk government, thus it seems logical that the 35 new pilots have joined the Libyan National Army Air Force. New photos published on Libyan Army social media now confirm that some of these cadets fly for the LNA/AF in Benina airbase.

It is almost certain that Egypt and the UAE are directly intervening in the Libya conflict

On Sept. 25, 2016, the Benghazi Revolutionaries Shura Council, or BRSC — a group with ties to Al Qaeda — published photos of air strikes that hit the Ganfouda area of Benghazi in eastern Libya. The group’s Sraya media arm claimed that a drone belonging to the United Arab Emirates was responsible for the bombings. And a week earlier in mid-September 2016, fighters from Ibrahim Jodran’s so-called Petroleum Facilities Guard claimed that either Egypt or the UAE bombed them near the town of Ras Lanuf, killing five fighters involved in a counterattack on Libyan National Army positions. The reports are just the latest in a growing body of evidence that Egypt and the UAE are directly intervening in the Libya conflict.

It Sure Seems Like Egypt and the UAE Are at War In Libya

My interview in Le Monde newspaper on 15 September

My interview (in French) in Le Monde newspaper on 15 September 2016 about United Arab Emirates and Egypt support to General Haftar and Tobruk government.

Le général libyen Khalifa Haftar, faux paria diplomatique