Interlocking Threads

Egypt Today speaks to political science professor and expert Tarek Fahmy about this week’s terrorist attacks, the three-month state of emergency and the newly formed Supreme Council for Combating Terrorism.

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Why were our churches attacked?
Before we talk about the reasons we must first explain the first pillar of what is known as the Islamic State, which is complete dominance in the areas they exist in. They then move to other places and extend their control, and this is exactly what the terrorists have done. After controlling countries like Syria and Iraq and their existence in places like Sinai, they’re changing their strategic power fields and expanding to Egypt’s large governorates like Cairo, which was exposed to previous terrorist attacks, followed by what we consider the second capital (Alexandria) and the Delta governorate (Tanta) last Palm Sunday. The main proof of this is that what happened in Egypt last Sunday happened in Somalia the same day.

Does the Muslim Brotherhood follow the Islamic State?
Who knows, but it was ISIS that claimed responsibility for the two Coptic church bombings that took place last Sunday. The main reason behind this is that ISIS started to announce its existence in large governorates like Alexandria and Tanta.

What message are the terrorists trying to send?
There are hidden messages—they want to say to the whole world, ‘Yes we have dominance all over Egypt not only in Sinai. . . . Egypt is not a safe country.’ Here we have to mention that terrorists have a target bank. This bank contains 46 targets, and they choose between them depending on their priorities at the time they launch the attack. They usually target houses of worship, community centers, infrastructure, residential areas, police and army officers, among others.

Why do they usually choose feasts to launch their attacks?
They generally choose feasts to achieve wider effect and the most harm.

To what extent will these terrorist attacks affect Egypt’s security reputation, tourism and the economy?
Tourism is not in its best state right now. ISIS’s target is not to harm Egypt economically, at least not directly; they just want to deliver a message to the whole world, the international community and Europe that Egypt is not safe nor stable and suffers much from lack of security. They want to show that even if you support it whether economically through investments or help with financial and military aid it will never move forward because it is not secured. They want to say it is better to stop aiding Egypt, that there is no hope.
What we have to admit also is that the successful attacks the Egyptian army launched against ISIS in Sinai pushed it to begin shifting its strategic area and move to the other governorates for two reasons: the first of course is very obvious which is to escape the attacks but the hidden reason is to divert attention. In other words they want to occupy the Egyptian army, so they [ISIS] can whatever they want.

How do you evaluate the performance of the government in dealing with terrorism in general and the recent attacks specifically?
There was no security fault that led to the occurrence of the recent terrorist attacks and the main proof of this is that President Sisi didn’t sack the Minister of Interior. If we want to evaluate the Ministry of Interior’s security performance in dealing with the terrorism file in general, we can say that there are no serious defects in their performance, only the normal defects that exist in security systems all over the world, even Europe. They work according to a special security technique and they follow it precisely. What most people don’t know or forget is that there is no security system all over the world that provides complete security—if so why have European countries and the U.S. itself suffered terrorists’ attacks?
But what I want from the Ministry of Interior is to pay more attention to the terrorist threats and deal with them more seriously, sometimes they underestimate the threats the terrorists posts on their Facebook pages before they launch their attacks—saving these innocent souls is the most important thing on earth.

What do you think of the president’s declaration of a state of emergency for three months?
It’s very normal in such critical situations that the president make exceptional decisions. I think that this decision is a proactive one, though it mightbe highly costly. But frankly speaking the president has no other choices. On the other hand we must bear in mind the consequences of such a declaration, including that the army will have judicial authority, which I hope it will use wisely.

Pope Francis has decided to move ahead with his scheduled visit to Egypt on April 28-29, despite last Sunday’s deadly church blasts. What message does this send?
It is an obvious message of support to Egypt from Pope Francis and the European countries that we really need today. If we review in our minds the speech of the president directly after the terrorist attacks we will find that it was crystal clear from his words that he was angry at the European countries and the international community in general. He was about to name some countries but he managed to control himself at the end. Europe must play a more vital role to support Egypt in its war against terrorism, they must understand that the support is not only financial or economic. From my point of view Egypt has a golden chance to hold an international conference combating terrorism in Sharm El-Sheikh, capitalizing its current membership in the Security Council.


Israel closed its side of the Taba border crossing between Eilat and Egypt following the terrorist attacks. Why?
The real reason behind Netanyahu’s decision is not the announced one. The official reason is that Taba is now not safe and he wants to protect Israelis but the real reasons are two: the first is that Netanyahu wants to direct a political message that Taba is not safe and full of terrorists, and this is not correct. Taba is safe, there are from 15,000 to 20,000 Israelis in Taba and none of them were previously exposed to any terrorist attacks. That’s why when Netanyahu asked them to leave Taba and return to Israel, nobody came back and yesterday they protested his decision and accused him of violating their personal freedom as they have the right to go wherever they want.
The second reason is to demand increase of security cooperation between Egypt and Israel; such cooperation already exists but he want to find any excuse to increase it and ask the U.S. to be part of this security cooperation.

What are your thoughts on the Supreme Council to Combat Terrorism?
The idea to form the Supreme Council to Combat Terrorism is not new. It came up two years ago, but there were some worries that the council would play the role of Al-Azhar and replace it, because combating terrorist thoughts is mainly Al-Azhar’s duty, which I don’t think is correct. The president has called several times for a renewal in religious discourse but this hasn’t happened till now. From my point of view the president didn’t form this council to replace Al-Azhar, he just wanted a council that would provide him with the general policies to combat terrorism, and work directly under the supervision of the president, because any supreme council must report to the president directly.
Whether this supreme council will succeed or not depends on a lot of factors. If it is given full authority and is made up of experts and highly qualified members, it will succeed. If not it will fail.

Do you except terrorist attacks will increase in the coming period?
We must admit that the coming months will be decisive in Egypt’s history, because they represent the end of the first mandate period of the president, and terrorist attacks usually occur at both the beginning of a mandate period and the end of it.
We have to remember that if real political life is absent, security problems will always arise). We have to admit that the expensive price of a weak political life is now being paid by security forces, because Egypt now has no real reliable politicians that are trusted by the Egyptians nor strong parties to believe in and be part of. We suffer greatly from the lack of political and social movement, a matter we must pay more attention to in the coming period.