Cairo: “Egypt can.” This phrase keeps popping up on the nation’s TV screens on the heels of a rerun video showing Egyptian fighter jets leaving their bases for air strikes against Daesh targets in neighbouring Libya.

Since Egypt went public with the strikes last week, state and private TV stations have been playing patriotic songs produced in the 1960s and 1970s when the country was at war with Israel.

The bombing, targeting Daesh militants’ facilities in Libya, has unleashed a surge in support for and pride in the army, the Arab world’s largest.

“Our army is strong and ready to teach any impolite person a lesson,” Mahmoud Al Assiuti, a street vendor in central Cairo, said as a popular pro-army song blared out of a nearby tape recorder.

“Its quick reprisal for our brothers slaughtered in Libya makes us proud of this army and even ready to sacrifice our blood for the sake of Egypt.”

On Monday, the Egyptian army said its warplanes had bombarded Daesh training camps and arms depots in Libya in retaliation for the beheadings of 21 Egyptian migrant workers there.

Earlier this week, President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi, an ex-army chief, inspected the country’s border with Libya, vowing “zero tolerance” in defending Egypt’s security.

The strikes came hours after Daesh extremists released a video depicting the mass executions of the Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya more than a month earlier.

The bombardment generated wide praise inside Egypt, even from relatives of the slain workers.

Mourners in the Upper Egyptian village of Al Ur, home to 13 of the 21 executed workers, chanted at a symbolic funeral: “Oh Sissi, strike!” The slogan was repeated at other pro-government rallies.

‘Restored our dignity’

“The strike has cooled the fire inside our hearts,” a mother of an Egyptian killed in Libya, told private CBC TV. “The strike has restored to us our dignity and increased our love for Al Sissi.”

The Egyptian leader this week demanded a UN mandate for international military intervention with Libya, a request that has drawn little backing for fear this could further worsen the situation in the North African country that has two rival governments and multiple militias.

Egypt shares a border of more than 1,000 kilometres with oil-rich Libya. The porous border has reportedly been used for an illegal flow of arms into Egypt in recent years.

Egyptian government officials have said their country could carry out further aerial attacks against militants in Libya.

The suggestion has been welcomed by the Libyan government based in the eastern city of Tobruk, whom Cairo is backing.

The emergence of Egypt as a key regional fighter against militancy has drawn praise from most of the country’s political powers amid economic woes compounded by four years of political upheaval.

However, some voices have been raised warning against a deeper involvement in Libya’s vicious conflict.

“The biggest strategic mistake that Egypt could make is to be dragged into a ground fight inside Libya,” said Asma Al Hussaini, a writer on the semi-official newspaper Al Ahram. “Such a fight would overstretch the deployment of our troops from Rafah in the far east of Egypt to Libya in the west,” she said.

Egypt has in recent months stepped up a military campaign against Islamist insurgents in restless Sinai. Militants have claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks that have mainly targeted security troops in Egypt since the army toppled Islamist president Mohammad Mursi in 2013.

“Dragging Egypt into Libya would weaken the army, inflict heavy losses on its ranks and subject the country to economic bleeding,” Asma said. “Should this happen, it would be a repeat of Egypt’s painful experience in Yemen, which was a prelude to Egypt’s 1967 military defeat [by Israel]”.

In 1962 Egyptian troops sent to Yemen to support a republican ally fought a deadly guerrilla war against tribal loyalists of a deposed monarchy there.