Amid New Wave of Attacks, Egypt Strengthens U.S. Ties
by Tera Dahl 19 Jul 2015
In a recent conversation, a senior Egyptian security
official stated that Egypt needs the technological tools to monitor
the borders, especially the western borders, “that is where large numbers of
recruits and terrorists come. We have to monitor people and arms smuggling.
Tunisia is the largest recruiter of the Mujahedeen,” he said. Tunisians make up
the largest group of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, estimated at about
3,000.
Egypt is surrounded by instability in the region with ISIS
in Libya
on the western border, ISIS in north Sinai on the eastern border and Sudan to
the south. The war in Yemen is also destabilizing the region and the recent
terrorist attacks in Tunisia are concern for greater instability in Tunisia.
ISIS recently vowed in a video message to
expand its activities in Algeria. In a statement saying, the “jihadi war will
expand in Algeria.”
The State Department approved
a possible Foreign Military Sale with Egypt for Border Security Mobile
Surveillance Sensor Security System and associated equipment, according to a News Release issued
by the Department
of Defense.
The proposed sale will cost around $100 million and “will
contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by
helping to improve the security of a friendly country that has been and
continues to be an important force for political stability and economic
progress in the Middle
East,” according to the DOD News Release. The surveillance equipment
will be used in protecting Egypt’s borders, in particular the western border
with Libya, according to the Department of Defense.
Egypt has experienced an increase in terrorist attacks with
the assassination of top prosecutor Hisham Barakat on June 29th. On
July 1st, 17 Egyptian soldiers were killed in North Sinai from
simultaneous attacks from Sinai Province, an ISIS affiliate, formerly Ansar
Bait al-Maqdis. On July 11th, Islamic State
claimed responsibility for the attack at the Italian Consulate in downtown
Cairo that killed one person.
Last Wednesday, the Egyptian armed forces said they thwarted
an attempted attack on a military post between Cairo and the Red Sea. Fox News reported
that the “driver of a car carrying 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of dynamite
refused to stop at the checkpoint, drawing fire from troops, the military said
in a statement. The car went off the road and the driver was killed outside the
checkpoint, according to the statement.”
On Thursday, Sinai Province, an Islamic State affiliate in
Egypt’s north Sinai, carried out an attack on an Egyptian Navy
vessel. This was the first time in a two-year insurgency that militants have
struck at sea. No causalities occurred according to Egyptian army spokesman
Gen. Mohammad Samir, reported CNN.
On Saturday, July 11-13, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations
(CNO) Admiral Jonathan Greenert visited Alexandria, Egypt to “reaffirm the
United States’ commitment to partnering with Egypt and to enhance regional
security,” according to a Press Release
issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
“I’m in Egypt to build a stronger relationship with my
counterpart Rear Admiral Ossama,” said Greenert. “I was honored to meet him and
his staff today and visit several Egyptian Navy ships in Alexandria,” the Embassy statement stated.
In conversation with Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson
Ambassador Badr Abdel Atti, he stated that Egypt is on the forefront of
combating terrorism, “We are not only doing this to defend ourselves, but we
are defending the civilized world.”
He said that the recent attacks came in the framework of the
other attacks in France, Kuwait and Tunisia, saying, “We are all in the same
boat and are fighting the same enemy. It is a global phenomenon and no single
country is immune from this threat. No single country is able to defeat
terrorism alone.”
He stated that it is a “must for the international community
to work together and fight this phenomenon together. If we don’t be serious and
act swiftly, we will all pay a heavy price.” He emphasized that Egypt has been
continuously warning that this phenomenon is a global one and “it is clear we
are all united and the world is united in fighting terrorism.”
The Spokesman added that Egypt is open to cooperating with
their friends and the international community in various areas in fighting
terrorism. Key areas of cooperation he stated are in the exchange of
information, intelligence information sharing and high tech equipment machinery
to fight and detect terrorism. Another area of cooperation is cutting off the
funding from terrorist organizations.
He emphasized the need for the international community to
understand and start to address the various terrorist groups as the same
entity, even though they have different names. “This is the most important
fact,” he noted. “We differ with the Western and international community on
this, they are all the same.”
“It is sending the wrong message to fight a specific terrorist
organization in a specific area,” he commented. “We call them Daesh in Syria or
Iraq, this is not serious. There is Boko Haram, ISIS, Daesh, we have to deal
with all terrorist organizations because they all share the same ideology and
the same tactics. We must fight them all the same.”
He also called on the international community, especially
the United States and Western countries, to close some websites that are linked
to terrorist organizations. “Some are being used to recruit foreign
fighters-teaching on how to manufacture bombs, this has nothing to do with
freedom of expression,” he emphasized. He also highlighted some satellite
channels that are airing incitement and promoting killing.
MEMRI reported on
July 8th that in a “May 17 address on the Muslim Brotherhood TV channel Al-Sharq, broadcasting from Turkey,
former Egyptian MP Dr. Atey Adlan said that the Quran teaches the Muslims how
to fight and tells them to ‘strike [the infidels] on their necks, and chop off
all their fingers.’”
A retired senior Egyptian security official commented to
this reporter that the U.S. and Western move of supporting “moderate Islamists”
is a failed policy. “A message to anybody who previously supported letting the
so-called ‘moderate Islamists’ gaining territory in the Middle East, what
happened in supporting such a viscous idea was we have replaced former regimes
with much more dictatorial Islamist regiments,” he stated. “This change helped
in the large deployment of terrorist organizations in the Middle East.”
He highlighted that there are “no countries that are quite
safe of the grip of terrorist organizations, including the Western countries.
That is why we call upon the people that originally supported such an idea, to
review or think twice about their support that they provide to those so-called
‘moderate’ Islamists because the threat is going to reach them.”
Muslim Brotherhood
Hamas
is a spinoff organization of the Muslim
Brotherhood, and a designated as foreign Coordinator for Counterterrorism.
Note: Coordinator
for Counterterrorism is a division of the U.S. Department of State.
John
F. Kerry is the secretary at the U.S.
Department of State for the Barack
Obama administration, Cameron F.
Kerry’s brother, and married to Teresa
Heinz Kerry.
Cameron F. Kerry
is John F. Kerry’s brother, and a
fellow at the Brookings Institution (think
tank).
Derek H. Chollet
was a fellow at the Brookings
Institution (think tank), a special assistant to the president for the Barack Obama administration, and is an assistant
secretary for the U.S. Department of
Defense.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think
tank), and the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace (think tank).
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Teresa Heinz
Kerry is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank),
married to John F. Kerry, a trustee
emeritus at the Carnegie Museums of
Pittsburgh, and a life trustee at the Carnegie
Mellon University.
Andrew Carnegie
was the founder of the Carnegie Museums
of Pittsburgh, the endowed predecessor schools for the Carnegie Mellon University, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and the
founder of the Carnegie Corporation of
New York.
Thomas R.
Pickering was a trustee at the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, the chairman of review board that investigated the
2012 attack on U.S. consulate in
Benghazi, Libya in 2013, and is a distinguished fellow at the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
Carnegie
Corporation of New York was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think
tank), the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (think tank), and the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank).
Jessica Tuchman Mathews was an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), the president of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think tank), is a director at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank),
a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), and a
2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Ed Griffin’s interview with
Norman Dodd in 1982
(The investigation into the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population
control by involving the United
States in war)
David A.
Hamburg is an adviser for the Nuclear Threat Initiative (think tank),
and the president emeritus for the Carnegie
Corporation of New York.
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think
tank) was a funder for the Nuclear
Threat Initiative (think tank).
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think
tank) was a funder for the U.S.
Department of Defense.
Chas. W. Freeman
Jr. is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), was the president of the Middle
East Policy Council, and a U.S. ambassador for Saudi Arabia.
Richard
A. Debs was a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
(think tank), and a pro-bono financial adviser for Anwar Sadat.
Anwar
Sadat’s pro-bono financial adviser was Richard
A. Debs, and was the president of Egypt.
Mohamed
Morsi was the president of Egypt,
and is the leader of the Muslim
Brotherhood.
Hamas
is a spinoff organization of the Muslim
Brotherhood, and a designated as foreign Coordinator for Counterterrorism.
Coordinator
for Counterterrorism is a division of the U.S. Department of State.
Madeleine K.
Albright was the secretary for the U.S.
Department of State, and is a professor at Georgetown University.
Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding was a center
at Georgetown University.
Alwaleed bin
Talal is a benefactor at the Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, the Saudi Arabia prince, and Abdallah Bin Abd Al-Aziz Al Saud’s nephew.
Abdallah
Bin Abd Al-Aziz Al Saud was Alwaleed
bin Talal’s uncle, the Saudi Arabia
king, and a benefactor at the Middle
East Policy Council.
Chas. W. Freeman
Jr. was the president of the Middle
East Policy Council, a U.S. ambassador for Saudi Arabia, and is a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace (think tank).
Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace (think
tank) was a funder for the U.S.
Department of Defense.
No comments:
Post a Comment