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Since December 2016, more than a hundred Christians have died in jihadist attacks in Egypt.
DEATHS CONTINUE. The Egyptians carry the coffin of a soldier who had been killed the day before in the Sinai Peninsula during an attack by the Islamic State group, during a funeral ceremony that took place in the city of Ramadan 10, about 60 km north of Cairo, 2017. Photo by Mahmoud Bakkar / AFP
CAIRO, Egypt – The latest deadly Islamic State (IS) group attack in Egypt shows that it still has the ability to launch bloody strikes in the country despite pressure from a military offensive in the Sinai Peninsula.
Since February, the Egyptian army has been conducting a major operation called "Sinai 2018" aimed at neutralizing jihadists in the desert region.
But after several months of calm, the IS on Friday, Nov. 2, claimed an attack in central Egypt, which killed six Christian Coptic pilgrims and a faithful Anglican.
Gunmen opened fire on the faithful as they headed for the bus to St. Samuel's Monastery in Minya Province, south of the Egyptian capital.
"At a time when the Islamic State is weakened in Sinai, it is trying to start operations elsewhere in Egypt," said Mustapha Kamel al-Sayyid, a professor of political science at Cairo University.
The Copts, a Christian minority representing 10% of the 97 million Egyptians, have been repeatedly targeted by ISIS in recent years.
And the province of Minya, says Sayyed, is a "fertile ground" for jihadist operations.
The latest attack was also claimed by the Islamic State in May 2017, when masked men ordered Christians to go to St. Samuel to get off the bus and retract.
The pilgrims refused and were shot one by one, killing 28 people.
"Islamists are rooted in central and upper Egypt, particularly in Minya and Asyut, it is not difficult for the Islamic State to recruit in this region," said Sayyed.
The aim of the jihadists is to show that "Egypt is not stable, even though (President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi) is trying to give that impression," he added.
Another expert said that it was clear that the Islamic State was far from being defeated in Egypt.
"This latest attack shows that the anti-ISIS campaign has not yet reached Egypt, despite the authorities' clear efforts to fight it in different parts of the country," said HA Hellyer, a senior non-resident member. Atlantic Council and the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Since December 2016, more than a hundred Christians have died in jihadist attacks in Egypt.
"Massive problem"
Hellyer said the latest assault "shows that the broader problem of sectarianism, instrumented to support some parts of the radical extremist opposition, continues to pose a considerable problem."
Since the Egyptian army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, extremists have regularly attacked security forces, killing hundreds of police and soldiers.
The Egyptian group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in 2014, obtaining expertise and logistical support from the international jihadist group, which once controlled a self-proclaimed "caliphate" in parts of the country. Iraq and Syria.
Jihadists quickly stepped up their attacks on civilians by laying a bomb on a Russian airliner carrying holidaymakers to a resort in South Sinai in 2015, killing the 224 people on board.
Faced with renewed attacks – and under the pretext of fighting terrorism – Sisi repressed all forms of Islamist opposition, crushing secular dissent along the way.
At the end of November 2017, Sisi gave his security forces three months to restore order in Sinai after the attack on a mosque that killed more than 300 people in the city. north of the peninsula.
But nearly a year after this ultimatum – and nine months after the start of the military offensive – the jihadist insurgency in Sinai remains alive.
The Friday attack in the province of Minya showed that the IS can still hit hard outside the peninsula, even though it only retained a few hundred more fighters in more in Egypt, according to experts.
The army said in October that it had killed more than 450 jihadists since the start of the operation in Sinai, while the regime had lost about 30 soldiers.
Press access to areas affected by military operations is completely cut off, making it difficult to corroborate what is happening on the ground.
Rights groups regularly denounce what they call a failure of the state to take over the populations of the operational zone – accusations denied by the authorities. – Rappler.com
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