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Egypt calls for U.N.-backed coalition on Libya

 
Published Feb. 18, 2015

CAIRO — Egypt called Tuesday for a U.N.-backed military operation in Libya after a group of Egyptian Christians were beheaded there, in a sign of the growing willingness of governments in the Middle East to intervene in neighboring states awash in violence.

The appeal came from Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in an interview with a French radio station. El-Sissi, a general-turned-politician, said there was "no other choice" but to act in Libya, calling the turmoil there "a threat to international peace and security."

He spoke a day after Egyptian warplanes pounded Islamic State targets in Libya to avenge the group's grisly murder of 21 Christians.

This month, Jordan carried out a flurry of airstrikes in Syria after ISIS burned to death a captured Jordanian pilot. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also participated in strikes on ISIS, which declared a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq last summer.

Egyptian diplomats met with European ambassadors in Cairo on Tuesday and called on them to back Egypt's "fight against terrorism," the country's Foreign Ministry said.

The United States and five other countries issued a joint statement Tuesday calling for a national unity government to be formed in Libya through talks that are being sponsored by the United Nations.

Those who seek to impede the democratic transition "will not be allowed to condemn Libya to chaos and extremism," the statement said. It was signed by the governments of France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Britain and the United States. "They will be held … accountable by the Libyan people and the international community for their actions."

Egyptian officials provided no details of what kind of international military force they might seek to create. But officials and analysts warned that a hasty foray by Egyptian or Arab forces into Libya's already muddled conflict risked exacerbating the violence and undermining the current U.N. effort to mediate between Libyan factions.

"The militants in Libya would see Egyptian armed forces as an occupying power, and would retaliate in some way," retired Egyptian Gen. Safwat al-Zayyat said.

Egypt was spurred to action when ISIS released a video on Sunday showing the decapitations of Christian laborers from Egypt. Militants seized them in December and January amid a breakdown of law and order in Libya.