CAIRO: 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 UN-supported government in Tripoli, move to retake the strategic coastal city of Sirte.

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 El-Sisi, 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 Muammar Qaddafi who was later killed. The country is now split between a government in the east, allied with military commander Khalifa Haftar, and one in Tripoli, in the west, supported by the United Nations.

The conflict has escalated into a regional proxy war fueled by foreign powers pouring weapons and mercenaries into the country.

The US has grown increasingly concerned about Moscow’s growing influence in Libya, where hundreds of Russian mercenaries have backed an attempt by Haftar’s forces to capture Tripoli.
Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram daily reported on Sunday that the vote in Parliament was intended to mandate El-Sisi to “intervene militarily in Libya to help defend the western neighbor against Turkish aggression.”

Last week, El-Sisi 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 El-Sisi to send troops.

Haftar’s forces launched an offensive to take Tripoli from the UN-supported government 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, Qaddafi’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.

AP