Egypt launches air raids on Libya after killing of Christians

Egyptian fighter jets carried out strikes on Friday directed at camps in Libya which Cairo said have been training militants who killed dozens of Coptic Christians earlier in the day.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he had ordered strikes against what he called terrorist camps, declaring in a televised address that states that sponsored terrorism would be punished.

"Egypt will never hesitate to strike terror camps anywhere ... if it plans attacking Egypt whether inside or outside the country," Sisi said.

Egyptian military sources reported that Egyptian air force planes carried out six strikes directed at militant camps near Derna in Libya.

East Libyan forces loyal to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar said they participated in the air strikes, which had targeted forces linked to al-Qaeda at a number of sites and would be followed by a ground operation.

A resident in Derna heard four powerful explosions and told Reuters that the strikes had targeted camps used by fighters belonging to the Majlis al-Shura militant group.

But Majlis al-Shura spokesman Mohamed al-Mansouri said in a video posted online that the Egyptian air strikes did not hit any of the group's camps, but instead hit civilian areas.

In the past two years, the Egyptian air force has carried out several strikes on Derna, notably in February 2015 and March 2016, which killed women and children.

Mansouri also denied any link between the Majlis al-Shura group and the IS-claimed attack earlier on Friday, which saw at least 28 Coptic Christians killed and dozens more wounded by armed men who targeted them while they were travelling to a monastery in Egypt's Minya province.

The Islamic State group on Saturday claimed responsibility for the attack, its propaganda arm said.

"A security detachment from the Islamic State carried out an attack yesterday in Minya, targeting a bus carrying Copts and taking the lives of 32 of them," Amaq reported.

The group was heading to the Saint Samuel Monastery, outside Minya city, about 220km south of Cairo, when the masked attackers, who came in three pickup trucks, opened fire of them before fleeing the scene.

Egypt's prime minister said in a statement late Friday that the official death toll had risen to 29.

Clothes and shoes could be seen lying in and around the bus, while the bodies of some of the victims lay in the sand nearby, covered with black sheets.

Eyewitnesses said three vehicles were attacked. First to be hit was a vehicle taking children to the monastery as part of a church-organised trip, and another vehicle taking families there.

The gunmen boarded the vehicles and shot all the men and took all the women's gold jewellery. They then shot women and children in the legs.

Security forces launched a hunt for the attackers, setting up dozens of checkpoints and patrols on the desert road.

Ongoing persecution