An investigatory report issued by Disclose website, on Sunday 21 November 2021, revealed that Egypt misused intelligence supplied by the French military to target and kill civilians on its western border with Libya.
Since 2016, Egypt and France have been sharing military information about Jihadist groups’ movement along Libya-Egypt borders, in an operation known as Sirli.
French military staff found out that the Egyptians used this information to “kill civilians” suspected of smuggling.
The French military officials have notified their superiors in Paris of the abuse of the information.
“But very quickly, the (French) members of the team understand that the intelligence supplied to the Egyptians are used to kill civilians suspected of contraband,” the website wrote.
However, the military coordination continued despite reservations expressed by both French military intelligence (DRM) and the air force about the way Egypt was using the intelligence.
Sirli operation began in February 2016 during the presidency of Francois Hollande and continued till today during Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.
Disclose based its report on hundreds of classified documents on the operation that were leaked to it.
According to those documents, the French military was implicated in at least 19 air attacks against civilians between 2016 and 2018. Hundreds of civilian victims were killed during the operation.
Following the new findings, French opposition deputies immediately called for a parliamentary committee to be set up to investigate the claims.
In turn, Defence Minister Florence Parly ordered her own investigation following the publication of the report
Egypt had been sending combat troops to Libya to support Cairo’s ally warlord Marshal Khalifa Haftar, escalating the civil war dramatically in the North African country.
Since then, the Egyptian military carried out several airstrikes using F-16 jet fighters targeting, what it called, terrorist threats on its borders.
However, rights groups have confirmed evidence of war crimes in the wake of Egypt’s airstrikes, saying that Egyptian military attacks did not discriminate between civilians and fighters.
