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Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has announced that the country "will not fall into the hands of Islamists”

Egypt Watch: Military To Fight Rising Threat of Radical Islamists



Egypt’s ruling military leaders are feeling the same pressures that faced former president Hosni Mubarek during his decades-long battle with Islamic radicalism. Only days after more extremist groups declared plans to establish political parties for the country’s coming presidential elections, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has announced that the country "will not fall into the hands of Islamists”.

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Currently, thousands of followers of the previously outlawed Gama’a al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups - both brutally suppressed under the Mubarek regime - are attempting to return to Egypt and support the rising tide of Islamist movements positioning themselves for a role in Egypt’s political future. As a result, Egypt’s Interior Ministry now faces the difficult challenge of preventing these groups from creating potentially armed and violent political blocs while at the same time supporting the Supreme Council’s commitment to free elections representing all components of Egyptian society. A major obstacle standing between Islamists and reformers in Egypt is the country’s second constitutional article that defines Islam as the official state religion. Secularists had hoped to topple the constitution in last month’s referendum but were defeated after Islamists – led by the significantly established Muslim Brotherhood - urged voters to keep the article intact as well as adopt measures to quicken the race to elections. Since the referendum, the Brotherhood have attempted to discredit fears that their new political platform will maintain elements of the fundamentalism that defined the party’s first political manifesto back in January of 2007. Part of that draft, which called for clerical rule and stated that women and Christians could not run for president, also suggested, that if elected to power the Muslim Brotherhood would subject the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty to a national public referendum. While the Brotherhood claim to now occupy a much more moderate position in Egypt’s shifting political landscape, increased attacks on both Sufi shrines and Christian churches - though blamed on radicalized Salfist elements - show a significantly emboldened base of support for the kind of uncompromising notions put forward by the Brotherhood historically. In a deliberate public push-back Tuesday, Assistant Defense Minister Mohamed Mukhtar suggested that Egypt will not be run by “a new Khomeini” and that the SCAF will impose measures to “protect the country from extremist groups.” Exactly what that means strategically remains currently unclear.


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Trevor Westra -- Bio and Archives

Trevor Westra is a Canadian analyst and blogger whose writings on international affairs are featured at FamilySecurityMatters.org, syndicated security news-blog WorldThreats.com, and online magazine Global Politician. He writes frequently on role of religion in global conflict at his website, and is a contributing analyst with </i>Wikistrat. A graduate of Canada’s Laurentian University, he specializes in the religious historiography of the Middle East and South Asia.


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