CAIRO (AFP) – Egypt has used intelligence supplied by the French military to target and kill civilians suspected of smuggling, according to a report by investigative website Disclose, based on leaked documents.
French opposition deputies immediately called for a parliamentary committee to be set up to investigate the claims, while Defence Minister Florence Parly ordered her own investigation following the publication of the report on Sunday.
“Sirli”, the name of the mission between the two countries, was designed to provide intelligence on security threats along Egypt’s western border with Libya, Disclose said.
“In principle, the mission … consisted of searching the Western Desert to find possible terrorist threats coming from Libya,” using a light aircraft designed for surveillance and reconnaissance, it said.
“But very quickly, the (French) members of the team understand that the intelligence supplied to the Egyptians are used to kill civilians suspected of [carrying] contraband,” the website wrote.
French military staff regularly notified their superiors of the abuse of the information, it added.
Disclose based its report on hundreds of classified documents on the operation that were leaked to it.
According to those documents, the French military was implicated in at least 19 air attacks against civilians between 2016 and 2018.
Operation Sirli began in February 2016 during the presidency of Francois Hollande.
It continued despite reservations expressed by both French military intelligence (DRM) and the air force about the way Egypt was using the intelligence, said Disclose.