Egypt has used intelligence supplied by the French military to target and “kill civilians” suspected of smuggling, a report on Sunday by investigative Web site Disclose said, based on leaked documents.
French opposition deputies immediately called for a parliamentary committee to be set up to investigate the affair, while French Minister of Armed Forces Florence Parly ordered her own investigation.
“Sirli,” the name of the mission between the two countries, was designed to provide intelligence on the jihadist threat along Egypt’s western border with Libya, Disclose said.
Photo: Reuters
“In principle, the mission... consisted of searching the Western Desert to find possible terrorist threats coming from Libya,” using a light aircraft designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, it said.
“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 Web site wrote.
French military staff regularly notified their superiors of the abuse of the information, it added.
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 airstrikes against civilians from 2016 to 2018.
Operation Sirli began in February 2016 during the administration of then-French president Francois Hollande.
It continued despite the reservations expressed by the French military intelligence and the air force about the way Egypt was using the intelligence, Disclose said.
One such note was addressed to Parly on Jan. 22, 2019, before French President Emmanuel Macron’s official visit to Egypt.
The French military was nevertheless still deployed in the Egypt, Disclose reported.
Neither the French presidency nor any of the arms of the military responded to an approach from the journalists who carried out the investigation.
Within hours of the story’s publication, a statement from the French Ministry of Defense confirmed that the two countries had arrangements in the field of intelligence and counterterrorism.
However, for security reasons, they were not prepared to say any more on the matter.
The statement added that Parly had asked for an investigation to be launched into the information revealed by Disclose.
The left-wing opposition France Unbowed party issued a statement calling for a parliamentary inquiry into the allegations.
The party called for French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, who served as defense minister during the Hollande presidency, to come before parliament to explain what was going on.
Although France has expressed a desire to refocus its arms exports on Europe, Egypt remains one of its main clients.
Its sales there increased considerably when Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi took power in 2014. Since then, Egypt has bought France’s Rafale fighter aircraft, a frigate, four corvettes and two Mistral helicopter-carriers.
In December last year, Macron awarded al-Sisi the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the highest award that France has to offer, provoking outrage from activists who have criticized his human rights record.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS