Egypt

See the Terrifying ISIS Map Showing Its 5-Year Expansion Plan

My take: dream on IS, dream on.

ABC News, by Colleen Curry.

The Islamic militant group currently marching across Iraq trying to seize territory in order to create an Islamic state has purportedly published a map showing their plans for the next five years.

The maps were widely shared on Twitter this weekend. They show parts of Africa, the Middle East, and even Europe shaded in black, to represent the territories that ISIS hopes will be part of its Sunni-run state.

ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and is a militant group that currently has fighters in Syria and Iraq trying to seize territory.

The maps were published at the same time that ISIS announced the creation of a caliphate, or Islamic state, spanning the territory they control in Iraq and Syria.

via abcnews.go.com

ISIS's Newest Recruit Is 10 Years Old

What can I say? Read on at The Daily Beast

Much to the horror of the city’s adults, children carrying guns are increasingly common in Mosul’s streets. Meet ISIS’s youngest recruit.

MOSUL, Iraq -- It was a surprising sight. The customers standing in Haj Hamdoun’s store in central Mosul watched as a masked child came into the shop, bought what he wanted without saying a word and then left again, carrying a bag containing candies and milk in one hand and a heavy machine gun, which was just about as big as him, in the other.

This was Abdullah, who appears to be the city’s youngest volunteer with the Sunni extremist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, that took control of Mosul over two weeks ago.

Abdullah is not yet 11 years old. But his older brother and his father, who was a senior member of ISIS, were killed in fighting between the group and Iraqi security forces in 2013. That’s why Abdullah joined ISIS, although he is far from the only child in its ranks. 

The storeowner, Hamdoun, says he has actually grown used to seeing Abdullah wandering around, carrying his big gun with both pride and difficulty. He has also seen the boy on guard duty together with other ISIS fighters in front of the new ISIS headquarters in Mosul, which originally was the home of a government official.

A curious bystander wanted to start a conversation with Abdullah. “I have a son your age, but he’s not eager to carry arms,” the man said. “He spends most of his time on the computer.”

A tall, overweight gunman, who seemed to be responsible for the child, answered on Abdullah’s behalf. “Our children don’t waste time on electronic games or on watching cartoons,” he said. “They have a dream and their dream is to establish an Islamic state.”

The gunman patted Abdullah’s shoulder. “We have a lot of hope for Abdullah and other children his age,” the gunman continued. “We believe they will conquer all of Iraq and Persia and that they will liberate Jerusalem.”

Abdullah may be the youngest volunteer with ISIS but other children and teenagers also have become enthusiastic about bearing arms for the extremist group in Mosul. As soon as ISIS arrived here, it began to attract new members, aged anywhere between 10 and 30, who were drawn to the glamour of the group’s obvious power and the adventure of joining such a well-armed gang. 

Although estimates vary, the number of ISIS gunmen who eventually took control of Mosul was certainly not more than 4,000. So they need more recruits, both to control the territories they have and to join the fight on other fronts within Iraq.

This appetite to join ISIS has become a source of concern for Mosul’s families. Locals are only too well aware that many of those now controlling their city are young people who only volunteered to join ISIS several days ago, and that many of them are new to the weapons they carry.

Locals also know that ISIS needs more fighters in places like Tikrit, Anbar, Diyala and towards Kirkuk.

Despite that obvious need for more recruits, ISIS does have certain rules for membership, and the image of exclusivity is part of its mystique.

Firstly, the volunteers must be willing to obey their ISIS leader even if his orders may result in their death. Those who do not obey orders or those who retreat will be considered “apostates,” for which the penalty is death.

via www.thedailybeast.com

Khaled Al-Qazzaz, Member of Muslim Brotherhood, Lies in New York Times

My take: definitely exaggerated but on the right track.

Front Page Magazine. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.

Khaled Al-Qazzaz is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an international theocratic terrorist front group influenced by Nazi Germany whose members have gone on to run everything from Al Qaeda to various terrorist charities.

Khaled Al-Qazzaz was an associate ofKhairat el-Shater, who had been busted for terrorism before. Al-Qazzaz was allegedly part of El-Shater’s international intelligence branch of the Brotherhood.

While in office Khaled al-Qazzaz was quoted as saying that Egypt will not any longer cooperate with US in the war on terror and gave a green light to Egyptians to join the fighting in Syria. “All Egyptians entitle to enjoy freedom of travel,” said Khaled al-Qazzaz who added that the “the Presidency does not regard the Egyptians who fight in Syria as a threat to the security of Egypt.” Moreover, Khaled al-Qazzaz promised that “we will not become a centre for arresting or prosecuting Egyptians based on what they did in other countries.”

Since Al-Qazzaz has Canadian citizenship, despite being a member of a foreign government, there have been rallies for him, his wife is all over the place, and there are attempts at viral campaigns by Muslim Brotherhood front group members in the West.

The New York Times, always eager to give an op-ed to a Jihadist, rolled out its editorial welcome wagon for him.

The sheer dishonesty of the op-ed and the New York Times for running it can be measured in the fact that it never uses the brand “Muslim Brotherhood” in the text or even the bio, even though it’s all over Al-Qazzaz’s Twitter account.

This is the same New York Times which refused to run an op-ed by McCain when he was running against Obama because they disagreed with some of its content.

This situation is typical of the fact that Muslim Brotherhood members are allowed to run their editorials without mentioning what they are. Foreign Policy Magazine did the same thing last year.

“I am an engineer by education and an educator by profession. After the Egyptian revolution in 2011, I became interested in politics. I joined the presidential campaign and then found myself chosen to be the foreign relations secretary to Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, in July 2012,” Al-Qazzaz writes in the op-ed.

This is blatantly dishonest.

Khaled Al-Qazzaz had long been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. He did not become “interested” in politics in 2011.

You do not become “interested” in politics in 2011 and become the foreign relations secretary. Even the most naive liberal dupes know it doesn’t work that way.

“When the military ousted Mr. Morsi’s government, it was predictable that the president and his aides would pay a heavy price. I made the decision, along with eight other staff members, to wait with the president for the moment of his arrest on July 3, 2013,” Al-Qazzaz writes.

In fact Morsi was ousted by a populist uprising that Morsi and the Brotherhood met with brutal assaults and torture. The military came down on the side of the protesters.

“We set out a human rights agenda for Egypt that was spearheaded by the president’s office and that invited the United Nations to open a headquarters for UN Women Egypt in Cairo,” Khaled Al-Qazzaz writes.

Meanwhile Morsi’s boys were raping female protesters in broad daylight.

“We recommended legislative reforms to advance a new Egypt, and we met with all the local and international stakeholders we could to develop that agenda,” Khaled Al-Qazzaz writes.

By “agenda”, he means Islamic law, disenfranchisement of women, Christians, Bahai and anyone who wasn’t Brotherhood.

“I am facing this treatment because of what I represent. I represent a worldview that is built on a genuine exchange and understanding between civilizations and cultures,” Khaled Al-Qazzaz writes.

Khaled Al-Qazzaz represents the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization so foul that he won’t even mention it in his op-ed.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Qur’an is our law. Jihad is our way.
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”

Muslim Brotherhood thugs in Egypt burned churches, raped women and terrorized minorities. That was its “genuine exchange and understanding between cultures and civilizations”.

Mohammed Morsi, Khaled Al-Qazzaz’s boss, told US Senators that Jews run the media and had given a speech urging Egyptians to nurse their children and grandchildren on hatred for the Jews.

That’s what Morsi and Khaled Al-Qazzaz and the whole Muslim Brotherhood stand for.

“Why are you so silent about me?” Khaled Al-Qazzaz asks.

Here’s a better question, why are Khaled Al-Qazzaz and the New York Times silent about the terrorist group that he belongs to? Why are they silent about the churches that Khaled Al-Qazzaz’s movement burned? Why are they silent about the women that his movement raped? Why are they silent about its violent bigotry and hatred?

Why is the New York Times giving a member of a hate group that makes the KKK look like Up With People a forum to lie about who he is and what he stands for?

via www.frontpagemag.com

The Terrorist Sleeper Cells

Islamist Gate, by Azza Radwan Sedky

A Cardiff man, believed to be Nasser Muthana, 20, appears in an online video entitled 'There is no life without Jihad'. (Photo: AFP)

The integration of immigrants in the American social structure is known as the “melting pot.” The term explains how heterogeneous groups of various backgrounds become a homogenous one. It also shows how immigrants get immersed in the American society gaining more from their new country and becoming full-fledged American citizens soon afterwards. 

In Canada, similar integration is called a “Mosaic”: different ethnic groups together form one big country. In this Canadian multicultural society, newcomers assimilate into their new homeland but are expected to remain true to their origin and identity. Ethnic associations flourish; patrons frequent restaurants catering to all cuisines; festivals promoting one country/culture or another occur regularly; and mosques, temples, and various houses of worship enhance the Canadian city skylines.

Undoubtedly, multiculturalism works well in Canada, for prejudice, sectarian strife, and biases are quite uncommon.  Canadians intermingle unaware of these boundaries, for ethnicity and religion don’t construe much. However, while hundreds of ethnic minorities coexist in harmony, some immigrants go against this norm by maintaining a link so strong to their ethnic backgrounds and religious ideologies that it forces them to uphold terrorism, favour extremism, or even go against new homelands.

The picture depicted here has very little to do with the official stands that Ottawa, the White House, or 10 Downing Street take. With millions of immigrants, the framework around which these societies are built is open and accepting. 

Examples of those who remain dedicated to the deeply rooted extremist ideologies are numerous. Some financially support terrorist groups overseas. Gomma Abdrabba, a school governor in Birmingham, England, of Libyan origin, is alleged to have used a charity organization, to “transfer documents and funds for terrorist activities overseas [the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)].” 

Others boast openly about their ability to recruit ISIS fighters. Anjem Choudary, of London, was quoted as saying, “I have no shame whatsoever in saying these people [ISIS members] were at times in some way or other affiliated with us.”

Others go as far as denouncing or even threatening the security of their new homelands.  In 2013, the US citizens, the Chechen brothers, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, exploded two pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring hundreds.

ISIS has many westerners, including many British extremists, joining its combat in Iraq and Syria. These recruited members are originally Iraqi or Syrian, or from neighbouring countries.  They brought their extremists’ ideologies with them to the West, took them back to the Middle East, and will return with an even more radical version to the West yet again.

Al Hayat Media Centre, an ISIS-affiliated group, created its own online magazine that encourages westerners to fight with ISIS. Its video, titled “No Life Without Jihad,” calls on westerners to join the fight in Iraq and Syria. A recent video that went viral on social media showed a speaker, one with an Australian accent, recruits British Jihadists.

Unabashed and brazen, extremists in the West seem unstoppable in their bold defiance.  However, the West is waking up to the threats to and the consequences of such an open and inviting society.  The West is finally acknowledging the imminent danger that such newcomers may bring upon their societies.

Mohammed Hersi is a case in point. In an unprecedented and pre-emptive move, in June 2014, a Canadian court found Hersi, a Canadian of Somali origin, guilty of “attempting” to join a terrorist group: Al Shabab of Somalia. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Al Shabab is the group responsible for the killing of dozens of innocent bystanders in a Nairobi shopping mall, and it continues its assault on neighbouring countries. As far as Hersi, himself, is concerned, he had not done anything wrong, yet, which is quite true. As far as the Canadian authorities are concerned, Hersi’s intention to inflict terror overseas deserved incarceration, and his return to Canada afterwards would have endangered Canadians.

And cases against diasporas flocking to homes of origin to join terrorist groups are multiplying. In clear defiance and in an unexplainable allegiance to countries they haven’t associated with for years, these men have definitely not immersed themselves in their new societies and haven’t gained enough from the multicultural societies they have been exposed to.

Western extremists basically want the cake and eat it, too. They want to live in the West, which is inexplicable, but opt to return to torn-apart territories to fight an extremist war, which is even more inexplicable.

via www.islamistgate.com

Preparing Egyptians for austerity, Sisi cuts own pay

Read on here. 

(Reuters) by Lin Noueihed - Egypt's new president pledged on Tuesday to give up half his salary and property and called on the Egyptian people to make similar sacrifices, trying to prepare the public for a period of painful economic austerity.

In an impromptu speech at a military graduation ceremony, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said he had refused to sign off on a 2014/15 budget proposal following lengthy discussions this week because it was too dependent on ballooning borrowing.

"We said we would revise this budget because I cannot bear to accept it when it contains this level of deficit," he said.

"I want to think of the children that are coming and to leave them something good, but this way we will leave them nothing. If the debt keeps accumulating like this, we won't leave them anything good."

The comments appeared designed to prepare public opinion for further austerity measures, such as subsidy reductions, to allow for deeper reforms of the ailing economy.

Egypt's budget deficit reached 14 percent of economic output in the last fiscal year, which ended in June 2013 and the economy is forecast to grow just 3.2 percent in the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

That is well below the level needed to create jobs for its rapidly growing population of 86 million and alleviate poverty.

The turmoil of the past three years, in which two presidents have been overthrown and hundreds of people have been killed in the streets, have battered tourism and investment, worsening a huge unemployment problem and pushing up the deficit.

Egypt's finance minister, Hani Kadry, said in a television interview late on Tuesday he expected the new budget deficit to stand at 10 percent in the coming fiscal year, down from the initial proposal to keep it at this year's 12 percent.

His ministry issued a statement later saying it would revise the budget on Wednesday and re-send it to Sisi.

The government will also have to tackle the legacy of decades of corruption and red tape and a costly subsidy system - food and fuel subsidies alone consume about a quarter of total government spending.

via www.reuters.com

Above the Law

On June 23^rd, Egyptian courts convicted several Al Jazeera reporters to sentences between seven and ten years. And the world roared.

Mia Farrow tweeted: “Considering a trip to #Egypt? Skip it. You could end up in prison for 7 years for spying – they don’t need ANY evidence to convict you.” Jon Stewart, too, finds the prosecution “shamy," and is repulsed by the cage the reporters were in. I, too, find the cage repulsive, but in the same cage Egyptian Presidents faced their judges. The journalists are no better than Egyptian presidents.

The Huffington Post says, “Jon Stewart loves to go after Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, but never has he had more reason to take him on than now.”  And BBC staff held a silent vigil in protest against the sentencing. 

And in an unsettling discussion on Twitter, much to my disappointment, a human rights watcher suggests I don’t watch or read Al Jazeera if I find it inciting.

I’m not equipped to defend the sentencing or go against it, and by the way neither are all those noisemakers. The sentences are harsh and maybe even unfounded, but my take is with the defenders. What they are doing is threefold: one, assume that the judicial system in Egypt has been coerced into its verdict, that journalists are infallible, and that Egypt will listen to the uproar. 

The first argument is offensive. I regard the judiciary system in Egypt with respect. I hope that it has the wisdom and clout to carry out its sentences void of pressure from within Egypt, be it from authorities or Egyptians, or from the world, be it the journalists or the Mia Farrows. I hope that it maintains a high standard in dealing with the horrendous pressure that has been put upon its shoulders with the hundreds of cases and the hundreds of insinuative and demoralizing attacks.

The second argument is not very explainable. Just about everyone assumes that these journalists are innocent. I can neither vouch for or against the journalists, but I know that journalists are human. They can, like anyone else, side with or against an issue, be bought or at least be paid to lobby for a cause, or become tools in a propaganda scheme.

The journalists’ Code of Ethics entails seeking truth and reporting it, being honest, fair, and courageous, upholding accuracy of information, and averting deliberate distortion. Whether journalists, in general, pursue the rigid guidelines of such an oath is a matter I can't attest to. Though other professionals vow to similar oaths, policemen abuse and kick their fallen detainees, accountants forge and deceive, and politicians lie to their teeth. Why are journalists any better?

On day one of the Egyptian January 25th Revolution, Al Jazeera egged Egyptians on against Mubarak, then it hailed Morsi blindly, and later it denounced Sisi with a vengeance. An obvious propaganda machine, it never hid it allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood and its discard of Egypt, its army, and, in particular, it current president, Sisi.

Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Mansour and Alaa Sadek have called for the death of Egyptian journalists and Egyptian soldiers and officers. Names, cell phones, and addresses of officers involved in cases against the Muslim Brotherhood were highlighted. Officer Mohammed Mabrook, referenced in that same list, was shot in front of his home. 

Here is Alaa Sadek’s tweet (translated from Arabic):

“Any officer who killed a civilian deserves an immediate death. The names and faces of these officers are known, and their addresses are known, too. Retribution must follow. It is time revolutionists seek revenge against these criminals.” If this is pursuance of the journalist Code of Ethics, then Al Jazeera is truly a victim. These are mere examples of what journalists are capable of saying. 

The third argument is that Egypt may listen to the uproar and react. The noisemakers don’t realize that Sisi has already said that neither he nor the government will get involved in judicial decisions. This means that a pardon is out of the question, and that an appeal is their best bet. Indeed, Sisi should not get involved. It is up to the court to deal with the case the way it deems fit.  

More than anything else, I ask these folks not to involve themselves in Egyptian affairs. Egypt, hopefully, has outgrown this era where it listened to others and acted accordingly.

I’m for a fair and just trial; I’m for freedom of the innocent, and I do want these journalists freed, but I’m against alluding to fake assumptions and portraying Egypt as a bully.

 

Central Bank of Egypt establishes ‘Long Live Egypt Fund’ to support economy

Daily News Egypt, by Abdel Qader Ramadan

Fund will use account number 037037 in reference to the date of former president Mohamed Morsi’s ouster

Governor of the Central Bank Hisham Ramez announced Monday the opening of a new bank account under the number 037037, a reference to the date on which President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi declared the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi.

The account, Ramez said, will be known as the “Long Live Egypt Fund”, borrowing from Al-Sisi’s election campaign slogan, and has been set up to collect donations to support the economy.

A number of businessmen launched an initiative to support Egypt following the events of 30 June under the 306306 Fund, headed by Farouk El Okda, former governor of the Central Bank. The fund amassed close to EGP 1bn, including a donation of EGP 300m from the armed forces.

The idea of creating funds or opening accounts to support the economy flourished following the 25 January Revolution, including the 2512011 account, as well as the 333-333 Egypt Renaissance account.

Economic researcher at Stanford University Amro Adly said that the establishment of a fund to collect donations is a “populist measure” that falls short of an economic solution, as the idea is not sustainable and fails to address the issue of accumulating government debt. Solving the problem requires a restructuring of state revenues and expenses, he said.

“The president is employing his popularity, utilising a national speech to pass austerity measures that do not always enjoy popular support, such as decreasing subsidies and increasing taxes, and marketing these measures to public opinion at a time when the country is embroiled in political turmoil,” said Adly.

Al-Sisi announced Tuesday he would forego half of his monthly salary and half of his wealth and property, which he would cede “to Egypt”.

The remarks came during a speech at a graduation ceremony for a new group of students from the National Military Academy, in which he also called on Egyptians to avoid extravagance during the month of Ramadan.

Sisi said that that he receives a salary of EGP 42,000, the maximum government wage, and as this is more than what he needs currently, he is willing to cede half. He pointed out that he issued directives for no government employees to receive more than this amount.

Sisi said that he “will not respond to any sectarian demands to increase wages,” pointing out that these demands “do not recognise the nature of the current economic situation in Egypt”.

He asked Egyptians at home and abroad to take similar measures.

• Published: 1 min ago on June 24, 2014
• Daily News Egypt
• Last Modified: June 24, 2014 @ 4:59 pm
• Filed Under: Business
• Tagged With: Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, Business, Central Bank of Egypt, Daily News Egypt, DNE, egypt, fund, National Military Academy, ramadan

via www.dailynewsegypt.com

Kerry Says U.S. Is Ready to Renew Ties With Egypt

Ny Times, David K. Kirkpatrick and Michael R. Gordan

President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, right, and Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday at the Presidential Palace in Cairo. Credit Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 

CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry signaled Sunday that the Obama administration was ready to repair relations with Egypt under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the former general who led last year’s military takeover.

After a 90-minute meeting with Mr. Sisi, Mr. Kerry said at a news conference here that he had come to reaffirm Washington’s “historic partnership” with Egypt. “We want to see the people of Egypt succeed,” he said, and so he and Mr. Sisi had discussed, “most importantly, our mutual determination for our countries to work together in partnership.”

Mr. Kerry expressed firm confidence that the United States would soon fully restore $650 million — the first tranche of the $1.3 billion in annual aid — to the military that the Obama administration had partly withheld after the takeover.

“I am absolutely confident we will get on track there,” he said. Addressing a previously suspended shipment of 10 Apache helicopter gunships that the Egyptian military has been especially eager for, Mr. Kerry said he was just as confident “that the Apaches will come, and that they will come very, very soon.”

And in Egypt’s economic challenges, Mr. Kerry said, President Obama and the United States are “committed to be helpful.”

Three years after Mr. Obama called publicly for President Hosni Mubarak to bow to the Arab Spring uprising demanding his ouster, Mr. Kerry’s remarks appeared to suggest that the administration is now ready to work with another military-backed strongman.

Mr. Sisi won 97 percent of the official votes in a barely contested election last month, and both European and United States-funded observer delegations said it fell short of international standards of democracy. But Mr. Kerry’s comments suggested that the Obama administration was nonetheless ready to try to work with Egypt’s new military-backed government while urging it to improve its records on human rights.

Mr. Kerry tacitly acknowledged the administration’s criticisms of the new government’s authoritarian record, including its heavy-handed crackdown on both the Islamist opposition and liberal or leftist dissenters. “I emphasized also our strong support for upholding the universal rights and freedoms of all Egyptians, including freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association,” he said.

Mr. Kerry said they had talked about the verdict expected Monday in the case of three journalists who have been jailed since December on politicized charges without any publicly disclosed evidence of a crime. And he said they had also talked about the hurried mass trials that had handed death sentences to more than a dozen senior leaders of the Islamist opposition and hundreds of their supporters, arousing horrified alarms from Western governments and rights groups.

He also alluded to the government’s criminalization of membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group whose party dominated the recent free elections but has since been excluded from politics. “There is no question that Egyptian society is stronger when all of its citizens have a say and a stake in its success,” Mr. Kerry said.But he noted sympathetically that Mr. Sisi had held the formal title of president for just days (although in truth Mr. Sisi has been the government’s paramount decision-maker since he led the military takeover). Sounding hopeful, Mr. Kerry said that the new president “gave me a very strong sense of his commitment” to “a re-evaluation of human rights legislation” and “a re-evaluation of the judicial process.”

Mr. Kerry visited Cairo on Sunday on the first leg of a trip to try to rally Arab support on the Iraq crisis, and on that subject he urged the Iraqis to move quickly to form a cross-sectarian government.

In Cairo, his words for President Sisi were notably warm, marking a milestone that Egyptian officials have awaited with increasing impatience since the military takeover that ousted President Mohamed Morsi.

Senior Egyptian officials have said all along that they expected the Obama administration’s scolding to blow over and full aid to resume. In a television interview during his three-week campaign, Mr. Sisi acknowledged that American laws complicated the matter by mandating a cutoff after a military takeover.

But he said that he had told United States officials, “Look at us with Egyptian eyes” and “don’t apply your culture, your regimes and your development,” and he predicted that after the election, relations would improve.

In Washington, influential senators are still threatening to block a full restoration of aid unless Egypt shows it is taking steps toward open democracy. The State Department has continued to raise concerns about the government’s crackdown. United States officials continue to dispute the Egyptian government’s assertion that Mr. Morsi’s supporters in the Muslim Brotherhood are violent terrorists behind a wave of revenge attacks against soldiers and the police.

“We do not share the view of the Egyptian government about links between the Muslim Brothers and terrorist groups,” said a senior official who traveled here on Mr. Kerry’s plane. “We do not have information that would substantiate that link.”

The administration believes “the Egyptian government needs to have a very politically inclusive approach, which means that they need to include and find ways to reach out to the Muslim Brothers,” the official said.

Mr. Kerry — whose unscripted remarks have sometimes sounded more sympathetic to the military takeover than the State Department’s prepared statements — no longer says publicly, as he did last year, that the Egyptian military was “restoring democracy” when it deposed Mr. Morsi, the nation’s first freely elected president.

The day before Mr. Kerry arrived, riot police officers with tear gas and clubs had worked in tandem with plainclothes supporters throwing bricks and bottles to break up a march by liberal groups demanding only the right to demonstrate; dozens were arrested.

But in his news conference on Sunday, Mr. Kerry nonetheless described a meeting of the minds. “I think we really found ourselves on a similar page of changes that have yet to be made, promises that have yet to be fulfilled,” he said of his meeting with Mr. Sisi, adding that there was “a serious sense of purpose and commitment by both of us to try to help achieve those goals."

via www.nytimes.com

The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria: Two Arab countries fall apart

The Economist; read on here. 

An extreme Islamist group that seeks to create a caliphate and spread jihad across the world has made dramatic advances on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border

WHOEVER chose the Twitter handle “Jihadi Spring” was prescient. Three years of turmoil in the region, on the back of unpopular American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have benefited extreme Islamists, none more so than the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), a group that outdoes even al-Qaeda in brutality and fanaticism. In the past year or so, as borders and government control have frayed across the region, ISIS has made gains across a swathe of territory encompassing much of eastern and northern Syria and western and northern Iraq. On June 10th it achieved its biggest prize to date by capturing Mosul, Iraq’s second city, and most of the surrounding province of Nineveh. The next day it advanced south towards Baghdad, the capital, taking several towns on the way. Ministers in Iraq’s government admitted that a catastrophe was in the making. A decade after the American invasion, the country looks as fragile, bloody and pitiful as ever.

After four days of fighting, Iraq’s security forces abandoned their posts in Mosul as ISIS militiamen took over army bases, banks and government offices. The jihadists seized huge stores of American-supplied arms, ammunition and vehicles, apparently including six Black Hawk helicopters and 500 billion dinars ($430m) in freshly printed cash. Some 500,000 people fled in terror to areas beyond ISIS’s sway.

The scale of the attack on Mosul was particularly audacious. But it did not come out of the blue. In the past six months ISIS has captured and held Falluja, less than an hour’s drive west of Baghdad; taken over parts of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province; and has battled for Samarra, a city north of Baghdad that boasts one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines. Virtually every day its fighters set off bombs in Baghdad, keeping people in a state of terror.

As The Economist went to press, it was reported to have taken Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town, only 140km (87 miles) north-west of Baghdad. The speed of ISIS’s advance suggested that it was co-operating with a network of Sunni remnants from Saddam’s underground resistance who opposed the Americans after 2003 and have continued to fight against the Shia-dominated regime of Nuri al-Maliki since the Americans left at the end of 2011.

It was barely a year ago, in April 2013, that ISIS announced the expansion of its operations from Iraq into Syria. By changing its name from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) by adding the words “and al-Sham”, translated as “the Levant” or “Greater Syria”, it signified its quest to conquer a wider area than present-day Syria.

via www.economist.com

 

Egypt jails man for a year as push against sexual harassment begins

Reuters, via Zawya

CAIRO, June 21 (Reuters) - A Cairo court sentenced a man to one year in jail on Saturday for harassing a woman, the swiftest such ruling since Egypt introduced a new law in early June to combat sexual harassment.

Abdel Lattif Abdel Fattah, a 39-year-old electrician, was arrested only three days ago, judicial sources said. He was accused of taking pictures with his mobile telephone of a woman passenger on a public bus while she was sleeping.

Abdel Fattah was dragged to the nearest police station by other passengers on the bus, who also testified against him, the source said. He was sentenced to hard labor during his imprisonment and fined 3,000 Egyptian pounds ($420).

 

The incident came two weeks after a graphic video was posted on YouTube showing a naked woman with injuries on her hip being dragged through a large crowd towards an ambulance. It drew a massive public outcry and led further victims to come forward.

In response, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered the interior minister to fight sexual harassment and the U.S. urged his government to do whatever it takes to combat the issue.

Two men were sent to six months in jail for harassing women last Wednesday and seven others were arrested earlier this month for attacking women near Cairo's Tahrir Square during Sisi's inauguration celebrations on June 8.

 

Egypt issued a new law in early June that punishes sexual harassment with at least six months in jail or fines of at least 3,000 Egyptian pounds. Judicial sources said all the new arrests and charges were made under the new law.

Sexual assault has been common for a decade at large gatherings in Egypt, where half the 86 million population are poor and illiterate. It was rampant at protests during and after the 2011 uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

Sexual harassment, high rates of female genital cutting and a surge in violence after the Arab Spring uprisings have made Egypt the worst country in the Arab world to be a woman, a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey showed late last year.

via www.zawya.com