EGYPT launched airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Libya on February 16 as it ‘seeks retribution’ for the barbaric filmed beheading of 21 Coptic Christians. There were at least seven strikes in Derna in the east of the country, which has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism since Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011.
It is the first time Egypt has announced military action against Islamist targets on its western neighbour, having previously denied it targeted militants there, and the first time militants connected with the Islamic State terror group have been hit with airstrikes outside Syria and Iraq. The strikes are in response to a gruesome video, released last night, showing a group of orange jumpsuit-clad Coptic Christians being marched to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea by masked, knife-wielding militants.
The beheadings are yet another reminder of the terror tactics of ISIS-just after it killed a Japanese civilian and burnt to death a Syrian pilot, not that the world needed any reminders of its ability to spread terror. It is however, yet another reminder to the world of what happens when the West tries to impose democratic ideals in a haphazard way in the Middle East. ISIS sprung out of al Qaeda which was itself an offshoot of the Mujahideen-the Islamic fighters trained and supplied by the US to fight a Holy War against the Russians in Afghanistan.
Yet the speed with which ISIS came to power also has its roots in the haphazard manner with which the West tried to oust the dictators Gaddafi and Bashar al Assad. The enormous power which ISIS holds in Libya and Syria and Iraq are due to the complete inability of the West to set up any sort of democratic institutions there-it is about time they realized that merely supplying arms to those who want to uproot dictators will not automatically instill democracy-the groups who fight dictatorship are not composed of angels but are themselves inspired by a desire to hold and keep power-as ISIS has repeatedly shown.
Ultimately ISIS must be destroyed by those who are themselves in their front lines-the people of Syria, Iraq, and Libya. If there is another thing the West and its allies must learn-dropping a few bombs here and there is unlikely to make ISIS quake in terror. A concerted ground offensive is needed to remove these deviants from the face of the earth.
