Egypt Claims Jihadists Using American Weapons

Egyptian officials claim jihadists are using American missiles to “attack the temporary government in the wake of the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi.”

According to Fox News, “an official statement… along with images of an exploded missile” were posted on the government’s Facebook page. The missile allegedly hit “the third floor of a building in the city of el-Arish last week” as part of an effort to target the North Sinai Security Directorate office.

The photos seem to show an AGM-114F missile. The weapon has a label “written in English” and “U.S. stenciled on the side.”

Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute’s Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence says that if the missile is indeed of U.S. orgin–and he stresses that is a “big if”–people need to understand “that it’s not a ballistic missile, which conjures up Cold War images of something massive and long range, but a Hellfire, which is the type carried on helicopters.”

In February, a Fox News report claimed “weapons left over from the revolution in Libya were being sold at clandestine auctions in the Sinai Peninsula.”

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.