April 24, 2014 | Quote

Egypt’s Leader Urges America to Reinstate Military Aid for Fight Against Terror

Egypt’s de facto ruler urged President Obama to restore the military aid suspended last year after Egypt’s armed forces ousted the country’s president and warned that America’s unwillingness to combat Islamic extremists in strife–ridden Arab states was endangering the U.S. and its European and Arab allies.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the military commander behind the ouster of ex-President Mohamed Morsi, and who holds the title of field marshal, is widely expected to win the country’s presidential elections scheduled for late May. He said that U.S. military aid was badly needed to help Egypt combat Islamist terrorism in the Sinai peninsula and jihadi training camps in Libya near Egypt’s border. America’s unwillingness to help Egypt battle what some have called the largest militant Islamist insurgency in Egypt’s history and to help contain ongoing civil strife in Iraq, Libya and Syria, he said, had created “fertile ground for religious extremism” that would be “disastrous” for both the U.S. and the Arabs.

Asserting as do so many Egyptian officials that the military and Egyptians have an alleged “special bond,” Sisi said that Egyptians had been particularly enraged by Islamists’ attacks on Egyptian soldiers and security forces, 500 of whom have been killed in the past two years, according to government statistics. A tally kept by the Long War Journal shows that Sinai-based militants have staged over 300 attacks there since Morsi’s ouster on July, 2013 in addition to over 100 attacks on Egypt’s mainland.

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Issues:

Egypt