Allons-y! Is France Ready to Bomb Daesh in Libya?

High-ranking French Army officials have obviously remained silent about a possible military campaign in Libya, however according to Le Figaro there are signs in Paris that an operation is being planned. The important questions are when and how France should commit to a fight against Daesh in Libya, as well who should join the fight and how urgent the operation is.

There is need to "eliminate Daesh cancer and its Libyan metastases," the French Defense Ministry believes, according to Le Figaro.

Daesh currently controls one-fifth of Libya and has between 2,000 and 3,000 active fighters, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US-based public policy institution.

Reconnaissance flights revealed that Daesh is moving closer to oil fields in the southern part of the country. At the same time the terrorists are coming dangerously close to the coast of Europe. The overall situation is complicated by other groups of radical Islamists seeping into Libya from the Middle East and neighboring African countries, the French newspaper said.

These are all very important things that, according to Le Figaro, would make France to get involved in Libya. But there are a few things that Paris should remember: it was due to negligent policies of Western countries, including France, Libya ended up on the verge of becoming the new stronghold of Daesh.

It was after the death of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya descended into chaos. Colonel Gaddafi knew the peculiarities of his country and was able to maintain internal stability in Libya. Since a unified Libya no longer exists, there's now the danger of the country being taken over by Daesh and other Islamic extremists.

French journalist Renaud Girard called NATO intervention into Libya against the government of Gaddafi as France's worst strategic foreign policy mistake.

Gaddafi might not have been the most pleasant or rational leader, but he certainly wasn't an enemy of France. On the contrary, Gaddafi made several of favors to France.

First of all, he pushed terrorism out of Libya and vigorously persecuted Islamic extremists. Secondly, he rejected weapons of mass destruction and revealed the nuclear plans of Pakistani engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan, working on nuclear proliferation. And finally, he stomped the illegal channels of human traffickers, transporting people from Central Africa to the Mediterranean Sea and then further to Europe, Le Huffington Post reported.

Hopefully France has learned from its past mistakes and it will approach the new arising problem in Libya with better judgment.