The viciousness of the terrorist campaign being waged against Egypt and the region has catapulted counter-terrorism to the very top bracket of the Egyptian government’s priorities, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid. 

In an article published on the Foreign Ministry's website, Abu Zeid said that Egypt’s historical battle against the forces of extremism has played an instrumental role in the formulation of its national counter terrorism strategy, and has encouraged other countries with similar priorities to form counter terrorism partnerships with Egypt. 

Egypt’s approach to combating terrorism is one of the comprehensive efforts against all facets of the threat, bypassing politics to place the focus squarely on how to mitigate and eliminate the threat of terrorism in a sustainable manner, he said.

He further said that Egypt’s insistence on isolating political considerations from counter terrorism efforts has unfortunately led some to claim that the Egyptian government’s counter terrorism strategy is narrow-minded or one-dimensional; this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The article titled “Egypt’s Theory of Terrorism” by Zack Gold and Elissa Miller, published in Foreign Affairs journal, illustrates this erroneous understanding of Egypt’s counter terrorism strategy, he said. 

The article focuses on the repercussions of Egypt’s vision toward terrorism on US strategic interests, and asserts the presence of strong divergences between the American and Egyptian approaches to counter terrorism, he went on to say. 

The authors’ claim that Egypt focuses solely on the military/security aspects of counter terrorism is one that has recently been echoed by others in academic circles, but it overlooks several key factors pertaining to Egypt’s counter terrorism strategy as well as the phenomenon of terrorism itself and its evolution, he added.

Egypt’s approach is in fact focused on the ideological, security, and socioeconomic dimensions simultaneously, as well as countering radicalism in all of its forms and manifestations, reflecting a comprehensive vision for tackling the growing threat, he noted. 

The article diagnoses the base roots of terrorism to be economic grievances and sociopolitical factors such as freedom of expression, which the authors believe to be at the heart of the US’ counter terrorism strategy, he said. 

He also said that the argument presented is that political and economic dissatisfaction, bred by the allegedly ‘repressive’ policies of the governments of the region, constitute the central cause of radicalization and terrorist recruitment. 

This notion is increasingly being proven fallacious by global developments, in particular the widening of the social, socioeconomic, and geographical spectrum of radicalization, and the rising phenomenon of foreign fighters. 

The pool of potential recruits and sympathizers for terrorist organizations has grown exponentially not only in number but in diversity as well; terrorists are now able to infiltrate a myriad of communities in different countries, including Western countries, and indoctrinate individuals from varying socioeconomic backgrounds.

Egypt’s counter terrorism strategy is based on a comprehensive approach which focuses on combating and dismantling the core ideology which constitutes the threat itself, confronting the different terrorist groups which are its manifestations, and working to create an environment conducive to the rejection of radical thought, so as to prevent the resurgence of the threat, he said. 

While political considerations may lead some to falsely perceive Egypt’s approach as the narrower one, it is in fact a more comprehensive vision that seeks to target the phenomenon as whole, rather than focusing on its more theatrical, attention-grabbing offshoots, he concluded.

Source : MENA