Rafik Hariri Center Nonresident Fellow Mohamed Eljarh writes for Foreign Policy on the recent reports of airstrikes in Libya:
Two government officials in Cairo anonymously declared today that Egyptian warplanes have been bombing Islamist militias in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. Shortly after that the spokesperson for the Egyptian presidency dismissed the reports as false. Just to make matters even more complicated, some reports are claiming that the planes in question are being flown by Libyan pilots.
The reports of airstrikes come not long after a new bout of fighting broke out in Benghazi earlier today. The clashes started a few hours after a televised statement by ex-general Khalifa Haftar in which he vowed to capture the city from a coalition of Islamist groups called The Benghazi Shura Revolutionaries Council, which is dominated by the extremist group Ansar al-Sharia. Both sides are deploying artillery and other heavy weapons in the fighting. (So far airstrikes are being conducted only by Libyan air force units loyal to Haftar, with possible support from sympathizers in Egypt and elsewhere; the Benghazi Islamists have no air power.)