(CAIRO, Egypt)
Twice
in the last seven days, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have
secretly launched airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling
for control of Tripoli, Libya, four senior American officials said, in a
major escalation of a regional power struggle set off by Arab Spring
revolts.
The
United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and
the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without
informing Washington, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines.
Egyptian officials explicitly denied to American diplomats that their
military played any role in the operation, the officials said, in what
appeared a new blow to already strained relations between Washington and
Cairo.
The
strikes in Tripoli are another salvo in a power struggle defined by
Arab autocrats battling Islamist movements seeking to overturn the old
order. Since the military ouster of the Islamist president in Egypt last
year, the new government and its backers in Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates have launched a campaign across the region — in the news
media, in politics and diplomacy, and by arming local proxies — to roll
back what they see as an existential threat to their authority posed by
Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.
Arrayed against them and backing the Islamists are the rival states of Turkey and Qatar.
American
officials said the Egyptians and the Emiratis had teamed up against an
Islamist target inside Libya at least once before. In recent months, the
officials said, teams of “special forces” operating out of Egypt but
possibly composed primarily of Emiratis had also successfully destroyed
an Islamist camp near the eastern Libyan city of Derna, an extremist
stronghold.
Several
officials said in recent days that United States diplomats were fuming
about the airstrikes, believing the intervention could further inflame
the Libyan conflict as the United Nations and Western powers are seeking
to broker a peaceful resolution. Officials said the government of Qatar
has already provided weapons and support to the Islamist-aligned forces
inside Libya, so the new strikes represent a shift from a battle of
proxies to direct involvement. It could also set off an arms race.
“We don’t see this as constructive at all,” said one senior American official.
The
strikes have also, so far, proved counterproductive. Islamist-aligned
militias fighting for control of Tripoli successfully seized its main
airport just hours after they were hit with the second round of strikes.
“In
every arena — in Syria, Iraq, Gaza, Libya, even what happened in Egypt —
this regional polarization, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, or U.A.E., on one side and Qatar and Turkey on the other, has
proved to be a gigantic impediment to international efforts to resolve
any of these crisis,” said Michele Dunne, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Middle East specialist at the State Department.
Egypt’s role, the American officials said, was to provide bases for
the launch of the strikes. The Egyptian president, Abdel-Fattah
el-Sisi, and other officials have issued vigorous-sounding but carefully
worded public statements denying any direct action by Egyptian forces
in Libya.
“There
are no Egyptian aircraft or forces in Libya, and no Egyptian aircraft
participated in military action inside Libya,” Mr. Sisi said on Sunday,
the state news agency reported.
In private, the officials said, the Egyptian denials had been more sweeping.
The
officials said the U.A.E. — which boasts one of the most effective air
forces in the Arab world, thanks to American equipment and training —
provided the pilots, warplanes and aerial refueling planes necessary for
the fighters to bomb Tripoli out of bases in Egypt. It was unclear if
the planes or munitions were American-made.
The
U.A.E. has not commented directly on the strikes but came close to
denying a role. On Monday, an Emirati state newspaper printed a
statement from Anwar Gargash, minister of state for foreign affairs,
calling any claims about an Emirati role in the attacks “a diversion”
from the Libyans’ desire for “stability” and rejection of the Islamists.
The allegations, he said, came from a group that “wanted to use the
cloak of religion to achieve its political objectives” and “the people
discovered its lies and failures.”
The
U.A.E. was once considered a sidekick to Saudi Arabia, a regional
heavyweight and the dominant power among the Arab monarchies of the
Persian Gulf. The Saudi rulers, who draw their own legitimacy from a
puritanical understanding of Islam, have long feared the threat of other
religious political movements, especially the well-organized and
widespread Muslim Brotherhood.
But
Western diplomats in the region say the U.A.E. is now far more
assertive and aggressive than even the Saudis about the need to
eradicate Islamist movements around the region, perhaps because the
Emirati rulers perceive a greater domestic threat.
The
issue has caused a rare schism among the Arab monarchies of the gulf
because Qatar has taken the opposite tack. In contrast to its neighbors,
it has welcomed Islamist expatriates to its capital, Doha, and
supported their factions around the region, including in Libya.
During
the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya three years ago,
Qatar and the U.A.E. both played active roles, but each favored
different clients among the rebels. While Qatar backed certain
Islamists, the U.A.E. favored certain tribal or regional militias,
including the militias from the Western mountain town of Zintan, said
Frederic Wehrey, another associate at the Carnegie Endowment who
specializes in Libya and the Persian Gulf.
The “proxy competition” between the two gulf states in Libya, he said, goes back to 2011.
Now
it has extended to backing different sides in what threatens to become a
civil war between rival coalitions of Libyan cities, tribes and
militias. Although the ideological lines are blurry, the U.A.E. has
backed its Zintani clients in what they describe as a battle against
Islamist extremists. Qatar, its Islamist clients and loosely allied
regional or tribal groups from the coastal city of Misurata have squared
off from the other side; most insist that their fight has nothing to do
with political Islam and seek to prevent an Egyptian-style
“counterrevolution.”
The first strikes occurred
before dawn a week ago, hitting positions in Tripoli controlled by
militias on the side of the Islamists. The bombs blew up a small weapons
depot, among other targets, and local authorities said they killed six
people.
A
second set of airstrikes took place south of Tripoli in the early hours
on Saturday. The Islamist-allied militias were posed to capture the
airport from Zintani militias allied with the U.A.E. who had controlled
it since 2011, and the strikes may have been intended to slow the
advance.
Striking
again before dawn, jets bombed rocket launchers, military vehicles and a
warehouse all controlled by Islamist-allied militia. At least a dozen
people were killed, local authorities said. But within hours the
Islamist-aligned forces had nonetheless taken the airport.
Responsibility
for the airstrikes was initially a mystery. In both cases,
anti-Islamist forces based in eastern Libya under a renegade former
general, Khalifa Heftir, sought to claim responsibility. But the
strikes, at night and from a long distance, were beyond the known
capabilities of General Heftir’s forces.
The
Islamist-allied militias, allied under the banner Libya Dawn, were
quick to suspect Egypt and the U.A.E. But they offered no evidence or
details.
American
officials said after the first strike that signs pointed to the
Emiratis. But some American officials found it hard to believe that the
U.A.E. would risk a regional backlash. It was unclear how U.A.E.
fighters could reach Tripoli without a base in the region, and Egypt
denied any role.
On
Monday, however, American officials said the second set of strikes over
the weekend had provided enough evidence to conclude that the Emirates
had carried out the strikes and even supplied the refueling ships
necessary for fighters to reach Tripoli from Egypt.
Asked
about an earlier version of this report posted on The New York Times
website, a State Department spokesman declined to comment. “I’m not in a
position to provide any additional information on these strikes,” the
spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, told reporters at a State Department briefing.
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