CAIRO (AP) - Egypt carried out airstrikes against Islamic State group targets in neighboring Libya on Monday and began a push for international military intervention in the chaotic North African state after extremists beheaded a group of Egyptian Christians.
The airstrikes bring Egypt overtly into Libya's turmoil, showing Cairo's alarm over the growing stronghold of radicals on its western border as it also fights a militant insurgency of Islamic State allies on its eastern flank in the Sinai Peninsula.
Libya is where the extremist group has built up its strongest presence outside Syria and Iraq, and the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is lobbying in Europe and the United States for a coordinated international response similar to the coalition air campaign in those countries.
"Leaving things in Libya as they are without decisive intervention to suppress these terror groups constitutes a clear danger to international peace and security," Egypt's Foreign Ministry said.
Egypt launched U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets from bases near its border several hours apart and struck targets in the eastern Libyan city of Darna, according to Egyptian and Libyan security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk the press.
Egypt's military announced the first round of strikes on state radio - the first public acknowledgement of military action in post-Moammar Gadhafi Libya.
The military's statement said weapons caches and training camps were destroyed "to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers."
"Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield to protect and safeguard the security of the country and a sword that cuts off terrorism," it said.
The strikes came hours after the Islamic State group issued a grisly video of the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians - mainly young men from impoverished families - who had travelled to Libya for work. They were kidnapped in two groups in December and January from the coastal city of Sirte.
In the video, the hostages are marched onto what is purported to be a Libyan beach before masked militants with knives carve off their heads. At least a dozen killings are visible, but it isn't clear in the video whether all 21 were killed.
Inside the church in the tiny Christian-majority village of el-Aour, home to 13 of the 21, relatives wept Monday and shouted the names of the dead in shock.
Babawi Walham, his eyes swollen from crying and barely able to speak, recounted how he and his extended family saw news of the video's release on Egyptian TV Sunday night. His brother, a 30-year-old plumber named Samuel, was one of the men in the video.