Egypt’s Leader Urges America to Reinstate Military Aid for Fight Against Terror
Photo Credit: Reuters
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.
“The only thing they know is destruction,” he said, speaking of the militant jihadis now battling for power in Syria and other Arab states. “Usama bin Laden was only the first.”
By refusing to deploy western forces to help stabilize Libya after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization overthrew longstanding dictator Muammar Qaddafi in late 2011, he said, the U.S. and other NATO members had created a political vacuum that had left Libya at the mercy of “extremists, assassins, and murderers.” “History will judge you severely,” he declared.
Yet during most of this rare, two-hour meeting with a small group of American national security specialists and journalists in Cairo last week, Sisi repeatedly stressed Egypt’s desire for strong ties with, and support from Washington. America and its allies, he said, had an interest in avoiding further chaos in Egypt and in helping restore political stability and economic growth in the Arabs’ most populous nation. Egypt, whose population totaled 94 million people in March and which adds one million new Egyptians to its ranks every nine months, needs “substantial” economic support to overcome “monumental’ challenges, he said.
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