In 2016, a few months after the sale of 24 Rafale fighter jets to Egypt, a much more discreet project was born: the Sirli mission, an intelligence partnership in the fight against terrorism. Sirli’s French team landed in Egypt on February 13, 2016. The ten French, including three soldiers from the Military Intelligence Directorate (DRM) who make it up, are housed on a military base on the north coast, in Marsa Matruh. A Merlin III light aircraft, equipped with a communications interception system and a camera, will be Sirli’s eyes and ears.
The team is tasked with flying over an area of 1,200 kilometers on the border with Libya. The data (photos and location of vehicles, communications recordings) are sent to the French team on the ground, which transmits them to the Egyptian Air Force. But very quickly, the DRM had doubts about the intentions of the Egyptians: instead of terrorists, they seemed to be looking for smugglers. The desert area is indeed the scene of many trafficking: animals, food, cigarettes, sometimes weapons.
“What is most disturbing is the use by the French authorities of a cooperation which they know to be murderous to try to obtain information which they do not obtain.”
The anonymous source who transmitted these “confidential Defense” documentsto “Further investigation”
In the spring of 2016, concern mounts among the French, who are increasing their reports. A note dated May 8 stresses that “the partner finds it difficult to discriminate the ‘trafficker’ from the ‘terrorist'”. Trafficking, even the most trivial, seems to be all put on the same level. It is becoming increasingly clear that only the information which allows the attack on the traffickers is of interest to the Egyptians. On social networks, at the same time, smugglers posted videos of their pick-ups on fire. However, contractually, the French data must not be used for “dynamic targeting”, that is to say they must not make it possible to bombard targets on the ground in real time.
Was the work of the French mission used to bomb traffickers?
On September 21, Sirli’s team becomes almost certain that their work is used to kill traffickers. About 160 kilometers from the Bahariya oasis, the French plane spotted several suspicious vehicles. He transmits their positions to the ground crew, which relays them to the Egyptians. At midday, the French surveillance camera films a small plane, a Cessna 208. Belonging to the Egyptian army, it is equipped with missiles. To avoid a collision, the French move away. When they return to the area, they see a burning vehicle on their screen. The next day, an officer of the DRM writes a report mentioning this strike “very probably perpetrated by the Cessna 208”, and alerts his hierarchy on “the will of Egypt to use [ces] information for law enforcement purposes against local trafficking “.
Could French information have made it possible to target smugglers? The journalists put the question to the former boss of the DRM, General Christophe Gomart. To his knowledge, “we never gave any information that then allowed people to be executed“- with the exception of potential terrorists, he hopes. According to him, there is no question of”give information that will be used for purposes other than the purpose for which an agreement was signed“Apart from traffickers, were other civilians also victims of Egyptian bombardments?
Extract from “France-Egypt: revelations on a secret operation”, a document to be seen in “Complément d’études” on November 25, 2021.
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