Egypt bombs Islamic State targets in Libya after 21 Egyptians beheaded

Egyptian jets bombed Islamic State targets in Libya on Monday, a day after the group there released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians, drawing Cairo directly into the conflict across its border.

Egypt said the pre-dawn strike hit militant camps, training sites and weapons storage areas in the neighbouring oil-producing country, where factional fighting has unleashed virtual anarchy and created havens for jihadi Islamists.

While Cairo is believed to have provided clandestine support to a Libyan general fighting a rogue government in Tripoli, the 21 decapitations pushed President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi into open action, expanding his battle against Islamist militancy.

"And let those near and far know that the Egyptians have a shield that protects and preserves the security of the country, and a sword that eradicates terrorism," the Egyptian military said in a statement.

Egyptian state television aired footage of fighter planes leaving a hangar with "Long live Egypt" emblazoned on their tails, followed by night-vision aerial footage showing bomb explosions and the aircraft returning in early daylight.

Libya's air force also participated in Monday's attack, which targeted Derna, an eastern coastal city regarded as a base for fighters of the ultra-radical Islamic State.

"There are losses among individuals, ammunition and the (Islamic State) communication centres," Libyan air force commander Saqer al-Joroushi told Egyptian state television, adding that dozens had been killed.

Joroushi, who is loyal to Libya's internationally recognised government, which set up camp in the city of Tobruk after losing control of the capital Tripoli, said there would be more strikes on Tuesday.

The rival Tripoli-based parliament, which is supported by some Islamist groups, said the air raids were an assault on Libya's sovereignty. Omar al-Hassi, premier of the self-appointed Tripoli government, said three children, two elderly men and a 21-year-old woman were killed in the attack.

It was not possible to confirm either faction's accounts of the number or nature of the casualties.

CHRISTIAN ANGER

Cairo called on the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria to broaden the scope of their operations to include Libya, highlighting how the insurgent group has expanded its reach around the Arab world.

Since the fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, a number of Islamist movements have taken hold in Libya. Recently, some have declared ties to Islamic State and claimed high-profile attacks in what appears to be an intensifying campaign.

The U.S. military estimated in December that only around 200 Islamic State fighters were operating in the country.

Egypt is not the only Arab nation sucked into confrontation with the group by the gruesome killings of its citizens.

Jordan has taken a leading role in conducting air strikes against the group in Syria and Iraq this month after the militants released a video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a cage.

The 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were marched to a beach, forced to kneel and then beheaded on video, which was broadcast via a website that supports Islamic State.

The victims were among thousands of unemployed Egyptians desperately seeking work in Libya, despite the risks. Egypt's foreign ministry said it was banning travel to Libya and had set up a crisis centre to bring home Egyptians.

Thousands of traumatized mourners gathered at the Coptic church in al-Our village, where 13 of the 21 victims came from, struggling to come to terms with the fate of compatriots who paid a gruesome price for simply seeking work.

Before the videoed killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: "Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for." Afterwards, he says: "And we will conquer Rome, by the will of Allah."

The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, condemned the beheadings. "They were killed simply for the fact that they were Christians," he said at the Vatican.

Egypt's Coptic Christian pope was one of the public figures who backed Sisi when he, as army chief, ousted Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in 2013 after mass protests against him.

The killings put pressure on Sisi to show he is in control of national security, even as he makes progress against Islamist militant insurgents in the Sinai, some of whom have recently pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

"It's swift and decisive, it's not about strategy, it's about containing anger within Egypt," said Hassan Hassan, co-author of a book on Islamic State.

"Just like in Jordan, it's more about saving face, saying: 'You can't mess with us'. .... It's likely to evolve into a sustained strategy of helping in the fight against ISIS (Islamic State) in neighbouring countries."

Fears the crisis in Libya could spill across the border had already prompted Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, to upgrade its military hardware.

Egypt signed a 5.2 billion-euro deal to buy French weaponry on Monday, Egyptian media said, including 24 Rafale combat jets made by Dassault Aviation, a multi-mission naval frigate, and air-to-air missiles.

Credit to Yara Bayoumy

Condemning Islam is wrong course

Days after the video appeared of a Jordanian pilot horribly  burned to death by an Islamic State death squad, President Barack Obama told the National Prayer Breakfast that all faiths can be “twisted and misused in the name of evil” and that terrorists who profess “to stand up for Islam” are, in fact, “betraying it.”

Critics found Obama’s timing offensive and his message about Islam naïve: He should avoid moral equivalence, stop playing the theologian and recognize that Islam has a unique problem with violence and extremism.

Days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — in which temperatures inside the collapsing World Trade Center reached 2,000 degrees and the bodies of many passengers on the airplanes were consumed by burning jet fuel — George W. Bush took off his shoes, entered a Muslim prayer room at the Islamic Center of Washington, spoke with Muslim leaders and made a short statement.

“These acts of violence against innocents,” he said, “violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. ... The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam.”

On Sept. 20, 2001, speaking to a joint session of Congress, Bush called the teachings of Islam “good and peaceful.”

“The terrorists,” he said, “are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.”

Later in his presidency, when the charge came that America was fighting a war against Islam, Bush answered that it was radicals who had “spread the word that this really isn’t peaceful people versus radical people or terrorists, that it is really about America not liking Islam.”

“I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace,” Bush said. “And I believe people who murder the innocent to achieve political objectives aren’t religious people, whether they be a Christian who does that — we had a person blow up a federal building in Oklahoma who professed to be a Christian, but that’s not a Christian act to kill innocent people.”

Those who long for greater clarity in describing the peculiarly Islamic nature of terrorism — see Bobby Jindal: “Let’s be honest here: Islam has a problem” — should also be clear about something else. They’re proposing a fundamental shift in the rhetorical strategy of the war against terrorism.

In the Bush/Obama approach, terrorism is an aberration that must be isolated. Critics believe it emanates from Islam and must be expiated. And some urge the president to declare that one of the Abrahamic faiths belongs in a special category of menace.

There are, of course, consequential historical differences among faiths. It’s harder to separate divine law from positive law in a faith where the founder was also a political and military leader — though it was hard enough even in a faith where the founder was killed by political and military authorities.

But those who wish the president to publicly explore these matters are the ones urging him to act as a theologian. Presidential rhetoric on this issue should not be theological but phenomenological. The vast majority of the world’s Muslims — and an almost unanimous majority of American Muslims — believe their faith to be inalterably opposed to putting people in a cage and setting them on fire, or employing the mentally disabled as suicide bombers, or burying children alive.

This is the actual division that matters most, and the rhetorical division that best serves American interests — peaceful people vs. the terrorists.

Most of those urging Obama to assert that Islam is somehow especially flawed among the great faiths have never been closer to power than a fuse box. There’s no possible circumstance in which a president could say such a thing. It would cause a global firestorm, immediately alienating Muslim allies and proxies whom we depend on to help fight the Islamic State and other enemies.

How would the king of Jordan, for example — a 41st-generation descendant of the Prophet Muhammad — be forced to react? How would the terrorists use such a critique in their own propaganda? Some of the president’s critics are blithely recommending a massive, unforced geostrategic blunder.

Obama’s speech at the prayer breakfast was cliche-ridden and historically shallow. But its basic framework — pitting true faith against nihilistic violence — will be adopted by every future president. Some of the intense reaction against Obama’s formulation is rooted in a broader fear that he is not serious enough in prosecuting the war against the Islamic State — a concern I share.

But the answer is to prosecute that war more vigorously — not complicate it with careless and counterproductive rhetoric.

Credit to Michael Gerson

Study: 27% of Americans say ISIL represents true Islam

More than a quarter of Americans and nearly half of senior Protestant pastors say the Islamic State terrorist group offers a true representation of Islamic society, according to a pair of new surveys by LifeWay Research.

The findings that indicate many Americans have a dim outlook on Islam come as President Obama sent a formal request to Congress on Wednesday to authorize the use of military force to combat the Islamic State. Meanwhile, police in North Carolina tried to determine whether the shooting deaths of three Muslim students were hate-motivated.

Forty-five percent of 1,000 senior Protestant pastors surveyed say the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, "gives a true indication of what an Islamic society looks like." Forty-seven percent disagreed with the statement, according to LifeWay, a Nashville-based, non-profit Christian research group. LifeWay surveyed only clergy who identified themselves as the top pastoral officials in their organizations.

The pastors had a much darker view of Islam than Americans at large. In contrast, in the second survey, 27% of Americans say the Islamic State reflects the true nature of Islamic society.

The findings of LifeWay's twin surveys were shared with USA TODAY before their scheduled publication Thursday.

"People are increasingly antagonistic, and religious leaders are particularly antagonistic towards Islam, and perhaps what people are seeing nightly on TV news is driving this," said Ed Stetzer, executive director of LifeWay Research. "They think about it and say, 'I see this every night. I don't want this here.' "

Stetzer said LifeWay decided to probe Americans' and pastors' attitudes after Obama declared in September, "ISIL is not Islamic," part of an effort to undercut the idea that the group represents the religion.

This isn't the first study to suggest growing distrust among Americans about Islam since the rise of the Islamic State, whose militants have abducted aid workers and journalists, carried out beheadings of hostages and taken control of swaths of Syria and Iraq. Last month, a poll published by the Brookings Institution in Washington found that 14% of Americans say the terror group has the support of a majority of Muslims around the world.

What might be most notable about the LifeWay surveys is the strikingly harder views on Islam among clergy compared with Americans at large.

Sixty-one percent of senior pastors disagree and 30% agree with the statement "True Islam creates a peaceful society." Fifty percent of African-American pastors say Islam can create a peaceful society, while only 30% of white pastors agree with that statement. By contrast, 43% of the laypeople surveyed agree with the statement, and 40% disagree.

Other findings:

    37% of Americans say they worry about sharia law, the Islamic legal and religious code, being applied in the USA. Older Americans, those over 45, are more likely to hold that concern than adults 18 to 44. Women (42%) are more likely to worry about sharia law than men are (33%).

    76% of pastors say airstrikes against the Islamic State are needed to protect Christians in Iraq and Syria, while 13% disagree.

LifeWay polled 1,000 Americans and 1,000 senior Protestant pastors throughout the country as part of the surveys. Of the pastors surveyed, 724 identified themselves as evangelical, 474 consider themselves mainline. Pastors were permitted to consider themselves under both labels.

The survey of Americans has a margin of error of +/-3.5%, while the pastors' survey has a +/-3.1% margin of error.

Credit to Aamer Madhani