Maggie Michael

A priest and a witness say masked gunmen in central Libya have kidnapped 20 Coptic Christians from Egypt.

Abu Anas al-Libi, a man accused by federal prosecutors of being an al-Qaida member involved in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, died of complications from liver surgery, his wife said Saturday.

Egyptians are bracing for potential violence ahead of a planned major protest Friday by Islamists calling for the toppling of the government and the defense of their religion, with security forces vowing to confront any unrest with “lethal force.”

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Saturday that an assault on an army checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula that killed 30 troops was a “foreign-funded operation” and vowed to take drastic action against militants.

Egypt’s military involvement in Libya underlines Cairo’s concerns about the threat posed by Islamic militant groups operating near the two nations’ porous border, as well as home-grown jihadis who rely on their Libyan comrades for weapons. Above all, Egypt aims to prevent these groups from linking up.

“This is a battle for Egypt not Libya,” one of the senior officials said. “Egypt was the first country in the region to warn against terrorism and it is also the first to fight it.”