By Danny Metz, Blogger for Middle Eastern and North African Affairs
While the battle to liberate Mosul from the Islamic State rages on, warring parties are coalescing around the eradication of the terrorist organization. As the group’s influence gradually diminishes in its longtime strongholds of Iraq and Raqqa (Syria), there is an almost comparable burgeoning of strength several hundred miles to the southwest. Egypt, often an overlooked example of a growing extremism in the Middle East and home to the largest Christian population in the region with more than 10 percent of its 90 million inhabitants Coptic Christians, has witnessed deteriorating stability in the Sinai region. Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, an Islamic State-affiliated and notoriously brutal organization, has been engaging in acts of extreme violence against the Coptic populations – most recently in the city of al-Arish in North Sinai, where the group is allegedly responsible for door-to-door massacres with victims shot to death and even burned alive.
This unspeakable horror plaguing parts of Egypt fed off of the instability that accompanied the 2011 ousting of President Hosni Mubarak . The arrival of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, an Islamist, marked the point at which violence directly targeting the Coptic Christians began to spin out of control. The fall of the Libyan government, commemorated with the undoubtedly elegant end of Muammar Gaddafi’s reign, gave rise to what has been bluntly called a “breeding ground for terrorism.” Besides funneling foreign fighters looking to join Middle Eastern conflicts from all over North Africa into a single location, Libya’s power vacuum provided ample opportunities for arms dealers to sneak highly sophisticated weaponry into an unstable Egypt. Beyond speculation, weapons retrieved from extremist groups in Egypt have been linked to Gaddafi’s Libya, Russian stockpiles, and even outdated tech from the Soviet Union. Taken together, an ill-equipped Egyptian army , U.S. President Obama’s military embargo, and this influx of dubious weaponry into Egypt allowed extremists to gain control over large swaths of territory. Since mid-2013, the Egyptian military has been waging all-out war against Islamic State affiliates and, in 2015 alone, more than 2,100 people were killed in the battle in North Sinai, a figure dwarfed by those in Syria but significant nonetheless.
Recent strings of terrorist attacks have come to define life in what used to be pleasant, touristy hotspots in the Sinai region. Families of Coptic Christians have been fleeing the region by the hundreds, and Coptic students studying in places like al-Arish have been packing their bags as well. For numerical effect, prior to the Egypt’s Arab Spring uprising in 2011, there were more than 5,000 Coptic Christians in al-Arish, a number which has since dropped below 1,000. Even in Egypt’s ancient capital, fears of terrorist attacks haunt those who are vulnerable; in December, a bombing of an historic church left nearly 30 dead and dozens wounded. Even more frightening, a video released in recent weeks in shows a terrorist fighter literally promising violence and attacks against religious minorities. Beyond the horrific threats of violence, the Egyptian tourism sector has suffered, especially after both Russia and the United Kingdom suspended commercial flights to all or parts of Egypt following the November 2015 downing of a Russian passenger plane traveling from southern resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh and killing 224.
To say the outlook for the growth of extremism in Egypt is bleak would be an understatement, but to assume that we’ve hit rock bottom would be an even graver mistake. To start, the conflict against the deep-rooted terrorist organizations has been ongoing since 2013, and although al-Sisi commanded the “eradication of terrorism” in the North Sinai region, it would be naïve to think such lofty goals could be accomplished even within a few years. Even more unfortunately, discrimination and violence perpetuated against Christian minorities is unlikely to cease. While individuals and families might be fleeing westward, numerous reports have asserted that the Islamic State affiliates have been compiling lists of Coptic Christians and have made explicit plans to surgically remove them from the area.
To make matters worse, human rights groups have criticized the al-Sisi government extensively for its perceived unwillingness to provide security to the Christian minority of the country. Christian-targeted hate crimes have increased since al-Sisi became president, very few of which, if any at all, have even been investigated. The government has implemented legal restrictions to limit the construction of churches while no such limitations have been placed on mosques. Growing spurious claims against Egypt’s Christians, including the erroneous allegation that they are trying to convert Muslims and assert themselves aggressively in public spaces, has fostered an environment that encourages neglect as a response to the growing influence of the Islamic State in Egypt. To top it all off, recently the extremist Palestinian terrorist organization, Hamas, has been accused of harboring Islamic State leaders within Israel and Egypt, creating a potential influx of fighters and weapons to fan the flames of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Daniel Metz is a senior at Indiana University, where he studies Journalism, Central Eurasian Studies, and Political Science
Sources
Eltahawy, Mona. “Egypt’s Cruelty to Christians.” The New York Times, December 2016.
Hendawi, Hamza. “Egypt Says Near Meeting Russia’s Airport Security Demands.” Associated Press. February 2017.
Mazel, Zvi. “ISIS in Sinai: The Libyan Connection.” The Jerusalem Post, February 2017.
“Two Christians Killed by Militants in Egypt’s North Sinai amid Growing Attacks on Copts.” Egyptian Streets, February 2017.
Walsh, Declan; Youssef, Nour. “Targeted by ISIS, Egyptian Christians Flee Violence.” The New York Times, February 2017.
