US says UAE and Egypt bombed Libya Islamists

AFP/TripoliThe United Arab Emirates and Egypt secretly bombed Islamist militia in Libya, apparently catching Washington off guard, as turmoil in the North African country deepened with the Islamists naming a rival premier. The US government said yesterday that the UAE and Egypt were behind last week’s two deadly night raids on Islamist positions near Tripoli airport. “We do believe there were air strikes undertaken in recent days by the UAE and Egypt inside Libya,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told a news conference. The State Department also confirmed the air attacks but officials would not say whether Washington was notified in advance. An Emirati official said only that his country had “no reaction” to the report, while Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri yesterday denied any “direct” role by his country. Islamist forces in Libya alleged at the weekend that Egypt and the UAE were behind the air raids. Earlier, two US officials said the United States did not take part or provide any assistance in the bombing raids, although they could not confirm that Egypt and the UAE had left Washington totally in the dark about the attacks. The first strikes, on Monday last week, focused on militia targets in Tripoli, including a small weapons depot, according to a New York Times report on Monday. A second round south of the city early Saturday targeted rocket launchers, military vehicles and a warehouse, it said. Those strikes may have been a bid to prevent the capture of the airport, but the Islamist militia forces eventually prevailed anyway. The UAE—which has spent billions on US-made warplanes and advanced weaponry—provided the military aircraft, aerial refuelling planes and crews to bomb Libya, while Cairo offered access to its air bases, the Times said. Egypt’s Shoukri said: “We have no direct tie to any military operation in Libya.”  However, he told journalists in Cairo: “We help the Libyan armed forces by supplying their requirements for training.” Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE view Islamist militants in the region as a serious threat and have co-operated against what they see as a shared danger. “I think this strike is the unsurprising result of a momentum we’ve seen building in Libya... and within the region amongst Egypt and these Gulf states,” said Frederic Wehrey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I believe there was no consultation with the West,” said Wehrey, a specialist on the Gulf, Libya and US policy in the Middle East.