Last week’s attack on a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which claimed more than 300 lives, was the latest of an estimated more than 1,700 attacks that have taken place in the region since Mohamed Morsy was ousted as president in 2013. But the “increasingly autocratic” response of his successor is unlikely to stem the extremist threat, suggests Robin Wright in the New Yorker.
“[President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi]’s strategy echoes the West’s approach to extremism -- jail, shoot, bomb, or kill its adherents, and hope that their ideology is obliterated or discredited in the process. Like the military leaders who preceded him in the Egyptian Presidency, Sisi has channeled much of the foreign assistance he receives -- including large chunks of U.S. aid -- into his security apparatus,” she writes.
“Yet the violence only escalates. The Sinai jihadis have become ever more brazen and aggressive in terrorizing the local population. The attack on the Sufi mosque is an example. Over the past five years, extremists in the Sinai largely targeted security forces. Now jihadists are attacking Sufis, whom fanatic Sunnis consider heretics.
“What started as a local insurgency over autonomy has escalated into a challenge to the Egyptian state and its leader, with implications for neighboring Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to the east; chaotic Libya, to the west; and Europe, to the north.”
“[President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi]’s strategy echoes the West’s approach to extremism -- jail, shoot, bomb, or kill its adherents, and hope that their ideology is obliterated or discredited in the process. Like the military leaders who preceded him in the Egyptian Presidency, Sisi has channeled much of the foreign assistance he receives -- including large chunks of U.S. aid -- into his security apparatus,” she writes.
“Yet the violence only escalates. The Sinai jihadis have become ever more brazen and aggressive in terrorizing the local population. The attack on the Sufi mosque is an example. Over the past five years, extremists in the Sinai largely targeted security forces. Now jihadists are attacking Sufis, whom fanatic Sunnis consider heretics.
“What started as a local insurgency over autonomy has escalated into a challenge to the Egyptian state and its leader, with implications for neighboring Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to the east; chaotic Libya, to the west; and Europe, to the north.”
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