CAIRO — Egypt’s response to the latest deadly attack against its sizable Christian minority — a wave of airstrikes against Islamic militant installations in eastern Libya — may be a sign of both despair and resolve.
The Arab world’s most populous nation, Egypt has for years been fighting Islamic militants in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula. The government had so far succeeded in containing them in that remote and rugged northeast corner of the country and foiled repeated attempts by the militants to seize and keep territory.
But the violence has now spilled over onto the mainland, with an increasing number of high-profile attacks, including a total of four that targeted Christians since December. The string of attacks has highlighted an ongoing vulnerability and a worrying lack of reliable intelligence by Egypt’s robust security forces.
Unlike the attacks in Sinai, which have mostly targeted soldiers, police and suspected collaborators, the attacks on Christians have attracted unwanted international attention and stymied Egypt’s desperate efforts to revive its tourism industry, a traditional backbone of its now-ailing economy.
Egypt’s general-turned president has, since taking office in 2014, declared uncompromising resolve to defeat the militants. He also seems willing to sideline and disenfranchise almost all Islamic groups with a political agenda, arguing that violent and peaceful Islamic groups feed off each other. He has backed up his vow to restore security to this nation of 93 million with massive arms deals that added French fighter-jets, helicopter carriers as well as German submarines to Egypt’s already huge arsenal of Soviet-era weapons and U.S.-made F-16 warplanes, Apache gunships and Abrams tanks.
• CAN THE ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS BE STOPPED?
The short answer is probably not, but the government can hope to reduce their frequency.
El-Sissi and his military say the attackers have come from eastern Libya, sneaking into Egypt across the porous desert border. He claims the security forces have over the past two years intercepted some 1,000 four-wheel drive vehicles that militants used to enter Egypt; 300 were caught in the last three months alone.
His military has cryptically said airstrikes in Libya were continuing “day and night” but without giving details. Egypt, in the meantime, has pushed for lifting the international arms embargo against Libya, hoping that such action would give its main ally in Libya, Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a decisive advantage in his three-year campaign against Libya’s various Islamic militant groups.
Security officials say airstrikes against suspected militant training bases in Sudan, Egypt’s southern neighbor, could not be ruled out. El-Sissi said on Friday he would strike at militant bases wherever they might be if militants who trained there launch attacks inside Egypt.
Egypt’s relations with Sudan are fraught with tension over a border dispute, making it easier for Cairo to justify military action there. According to the officials, the military is closely monitoring the remote desert triangle where the borders of Egypt, Libya and Sudan meet in Egypt’s remote southwest corner.
At home, the officials said measures were under consideration to better protect Christians — whose religious calendar is packed full with pilgrimages to locations to celebrate saints or venerate sites where the Holy Family sojourned during their biblical stay in Egypt.
