Egypt's reprisal was swift. The day after Islamic State (is) beheaded 21 Egyptian Copts in Libya, Egypt's air force swooped across the border to bomb Derna, a hotbed of jihadists in Libya's east. Cairo said the raid on February 16th had targeted weapons stores and training camps. Libyan officials claimed some 40-50 militants were killed. So were seven civilians. Egyptian radio broadcast patriotic ditties amid praise for the "eagles of the army". Yet the air strikes will do little to arrest the widening insecurity and extremism that threaten Libya and its neighbours. Libya has disintegrated since the ousting in 2011 of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. Torn into fiefs, it is riven by conflict between two rival governments-an internationally recognised one in Tobruk and another in Tri-poli-along with two main militia groupings allied with them. Libyan arms flow across desert borders to sustain insurgencies in the Sahel. The smuggled weapons include, some suspect, an anti-aircraft missile that shot down an Egyptian army helicopter in Sinai in January 2014.
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