Egypt: US' war on ISIS must include war on Brotherhood

Egypt says the war on the Islamic State (ISIS) must be extended to include the Muslim Brotherhood in the region, a diplomatic source told Al-Mesryoon website.

According to the diplomat, Egypt has refused to join the US-led anti-ISIS alliance because of the complex political and economic situation in the country and the difficulty of convincing public opinion to send troops to fight abroad, especially because the militant organisation does not pose a tangible threat to Egypt, which is mainly busy tackling other terrorist groups that target the police and army.

Egypt has listed a number of preconditions to joining the coalition against ISIS, the diplomat said, including the necessity of expanding the war on terrorism to include the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and other countries, as well as the Ansar Al-Sharia group in Libya. It also insisted that the objectives and timetable of the war should be made clear, and that Washington should fulfil its commitments to provide Egypt with eight Apache helicopters and reverse the freeze on US aid to Egypt, which exceeds $1.3 billion.

Political science professor at Cairo University, Tariq Fahmy, expressed his fears that the region would be turned into a new Afghanistan, with ISIS seeking to internationalise the conflict rather than confine it to Syria and Iraq.

“These fears explain why some Arab countries adopt a conservative position on the confrontation with ISIS. They are concerned about a potential repetition of the Yemeni scenario of the 1960s which led to the 1967 setback,” he said.

He also warned of the consequences of placing all Islamic groups together in the same box, stressing that “there are fundamental differences between ISIS and mainstream Islamic movements,” and that the generalisation “might turn the conflict into a religious conflict by waging war on anything Islamic”.

The Salafi Front in Egypt has labelled the anti-ISIS coalition “the crusade alliance”, warning that Egypt’s participation in this war would amount to “betrayal” by involving the Egyptian army in “a proxy war”, similar to its operations in Sinai and its siege on Gaza, in addition to the attacks on Libya.