Egypt’s parliament is to vote Monday to authorize the president to deploy troops to neighboring Libya if Turkey-backed forces there, allied with the government in Tripoli, move to retake the strategic coastal city of Sirte, like reported by alarabiya.net.
An Egyptian intervention would further destabilize oil-rich Libya and put two US allies — Turkey and Egypt — in possible direct confrontation.
The vote was initially scheduled for Sunday but was moved to Monday in a closed session, according to lawmaker Mustafa Bakry. The House of Representative, packed with supporters of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, is highly likely to vote in favor of sending troops to Libya.
Libya was plunged into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi who was later killed. The country is now split between a government in the east, allied with Libyan General Khalifa Haftar, and one in Tripoli, in the west.
The conflict has escalated into a regional proxy war fueled by foreign powers pouring weapons and mercenaries into the country.
Egypt has been backing the east-based Libyan forces in the conflict while Turkey backs the forces in the capital, Tripoli, in the west. Egypt’s president warned in June that any attack on Sirte or the inland Jufra air would prompt Cairo to intervene militarily, allegedly to protect its western border with Libya.
Egypt’s state-run al-Ahram daily reported on Sunday that the vote in Parliament was intended to mandate al-Sissi to “intervene militarily in Libya to help defend the western neighbor against Turkish aggression.”
Last week, al-Sissi hosted dozens of tribal leaders loyal to Haftar in Cairo, where he repeated that Egypt will “not stand idly by in the face of moves that pose a direct threat to security.”
Libya’s east-based parliament also urged al-Sissi to send troops.
Hafter’s forces launched an offensive to take Tripoli from the Government of National Accord (GNA) in April last year but their campaign — which had stalemated after reaching the outskirts of the Libyan capital — suffered a blow last month when the Tripoli-allied forces, with Turkish support, pushed them back and gained the upper hand in the fighting.
The Tripoli forces retook the capital’s airport, all main entrance and exit points to the city and a string of key towns in the region. They pushed on eastward, vowing to also retake Sirte, which Haftar took earlier this year.
Capturing the city, Gadhafi’s birthplace, would open the door for the Turkish-backed forces to advance even farther eastward and potentially take vital oil installations, terminals and fields now under Haftar’s control.
