Egyptian airstrike targets arms convoy from Libya

The Egyptian air force said on Thursday it destroyed a convoy of 10 all-terrain vehicles in the country’s western desert suspected of smuggling weapons from Libya.
The raid was carried out on Wednesday on the basis of information that “criminal elements were preparing to infiltrate” Egypt, said army spokesman Col. Tamer El-Refai in a statement.
The officer said that the vehicles were attacked once they entered Egyptian territory, but he did not specify the fate of those in the convoy.
Egypt, which has struck terrorist targets inside Libya, regularly warns of a spillover of instability from its lawless western neighbor, a haven of arms and people trafficking.
The country has been battling an insurgency of its own since the military’s ouster in 2013 of former President Mohammed Mursi.
Terrorists have killed hundreds of members of Egypt’s security forces, while more than 100 Copts have died in church bombings since December.
In a separate development, Libyan authorities have arrested a suspected Daesh militant they believe was involved in the execution of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya in 2015.
Chief Prosecutor Al-Sadiq Al-Sour said that the executions took place behind a seaside hotel in the coastal city of Sirte.
He said authorities had also identified the site where the bodies were buried.
The killings, documented in a grisly video released online by the extremists, shocked Egypt and led it to launch punitive airstrikes.
Al-Sour said Daesh militants have been using Sudan, the country’s southern neighbor, to get into Libya.
Hundreds of Daesh militants are believed to have fled Sirte into the Libyan interior after their defeat last year by militias loyal to a UN-backed government in Tripoli.