ISIS' new Libyan front puts pressure on Egypt and Europe

Egyptian jets screamed over Libya's eastern coast yesterday targeting what the government says were ISIS training camps, retaliation for the execution of 21 Coptic Christians Sunday. While Egypt is beefing up its military hardware, ISIS appears to be trying to lure Italy and France into a North African fight and no one is clear how far-reaching the so-called Islamic State really is. 

The victims are Egyptian, Coptic Christians, in the latest horror to be committed in the name ofISIS, and captured in a slickly-produced online video, last weekend. Some twenty-one captives are paraded along a Mediterranean beach, in northern Libya, wearing the now-familiar orange jumpsuits... and ominously tailed by the ISIS henchmen all in black. This time a voice in English warns the West that the group has its sights set on conquering Rome, then a mass beheading ensues.

The Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, was swift in his condemnation... and retaliation. On Egyptian national television yesterday, he called the situation in Libya as a threat to world peace and security. And as he spoke, screens showed images of Egyptian F-16 fighter jets setting off to bomb ISIS targets in Libya.

Jared Malsin is a freelance reporter in Cairo.

When it comes to ISIS and other groups affiliated with it, so much of what we hear reported about it defies easy understanding ... if only for the sheer brutality of its tactics. But this latest episode is confounding on the level of strategy, as well. It's not clear, for example, why the group would choose to attack Christians ... or why it would choose to pick a new fight with Egypt, but not on Egyptian soil.

Theodore Karasik is a Gulf-based Middle East analyst. He writes for al-Arabiya and was in Dubai.

Thanassis Cambanis is a journalist specializing in the Middle East. He is also a fellow with the New York-based Century Foundation. He was in Beirut.

This segment was produced by The Current's Lara O'Brien and Naheed Mustafa.