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In Interview, Sisi Expresses Security Concerns, Lauds Cooperation with Israel

by TheTower.org Staff |

In an interview with The Washington Post published Thursday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi lauded security cooperation with Israel while expressing his concern about the Islamist extremism his country faces. Sisi blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for recent violence in the Sinai Peninsula and on the Egypt-Libya border, referring to the group as “the parent organization of extreme ideology. They are the godfather of all terrorist organizations. They spread it all over the world.”

A series of attacks erupted in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula, this week. On Tuesday, a suicide bomber targeted a police compound in the city of el-Arish in northern Sinai. Shortly after, a roadside bomb exploded near an armored vehicle. In total, the attacks on Tuesday killed two people and wounded more than 30. The jihadist group Sinai Province, formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdis before pledging loyalty to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. On Thursday, militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a checkpoint south of el-Arish, wounding an officer and two soldiers.

The Egyptian military has been fighting a growing insurgency in northern Sinai since the fall of Mohammed Morsi in July 2013, announcing a full-scale assault against the terrorist infrastructure in September 2013. Militants launched major attacks against security checkpoints last October. Sinai Province reportedly planted nearly two dozen bombs in northern Sinai throughout November 2014, killing four men. Last October, the Egyptian government began a policy of systematically demolishing houses in Rafah, which straddles the border with the Gaza Strip, to crack down on the flow of weapons and terrorists in underground tunnels across the border.

Elsewhere in the interview, Sisi stated that “We should give [Obama] time” to negotiate with Iran, because “we have to understand the Israeli concern.” The Egyptian president said there is a great deal “of trust and confidence” between Egypt and Israel: “[T]he [peace treaty] does not allow Egyptian troops in the middle and eastern sections of the Sinai…But the Israelis said it was fine to have Egyptian troops in those areas.” Sisi went on to say that he speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a lot.”

[Photo: CBS This Morning / YouTube] 

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