Research & Commentary Results

As the war against ISIS rages in Syria and Iraq, Egypt is fighting its own war on terror. On October 24, the Sinai Peninsula witnessed the deadliest attack on Egypt’s military in years. Twenty-eight soldiers were killed and another 30 injured when a car bomb exploded at the Karm al-Qawadis security checkpoint in Sheikh Zuweid in North Sinai.

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In the space of just 48 hours last week, Turkey went from calling the PYD — the Kurds defending the Syrian border town of Kobani — a terrorist group to opening up an arms corridor from Iraq to aid its fight against ISIS.

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Turkey is in a tough spot. It has ISIS militants threatening the Syrian border town of Kobani, inching ever closer to confronting Turkish security forces. In addition thousands of Syrian Kurds, fleeing ISIS attacks, have massed along its border, adding further to Ankara’s troubles.

This article was first published on LobeLog.

Alongside the wave of Syrian Kurdish refugees into Turkey this month is an equally unsettling story: alarming gains by the Islamic State in an offensive against a potential ally. Syria’s Kurds carved out their own regional bastion extending west from their main base in the extreme northeast corner of Syria. For two years they have fiercely defended their lands against the Islamic State and other extremists, employing many thousands of veteran Kurdish fighters.

Hala Shukrallah, president of Egypt’s Al Dostour (Constitution) Party, spoke with MEI about the party’s preparations for upcoming parliamentary elections, its legislative agenda, and the challenges it will face in Parliament. See more of her comments at this year’s Egypt Conference.

Q: How has the Dostour party been preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections?

This article was first published on CNN.

Turkey, a key U.S. ally and a NATO member that borders the territory captured by ISIS, which now calls itself the Islamic State, in Syria and Iraq, could play a critical role in the U.S.-led military assault against the jihadist group.

Last week, President Obama laid out his strategy to fight the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL). The strategy includes a systematic campaign of airstrikes; support to forces fighting ISIS on the ground, including Iraqi Security forces and the Peshmerga (the Kurdish armed forces); redoubling U.S. efforts to cut off ISIS funding; improving intelligence; strengthening defenses; and stemming the flow of foreign fighters into and out of the Middle East.

Most of Egypt’s newly created secular political parties have complained bitterly about the Parliament Election Law, which former Interim President Adly Mansour rushed to approve in his last day in office, before handing over power to newly-elected President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

In the last three years, Egypt’s economic position has deteriorated dramatically. Domestic and external deficits have increased, causing public debt to grow sharply, external reserves to fall, investment to shrink, and inflation to increase. In the process, growth decelerated, unemployment rose, income distribution worsened, and the medium term economic outlook became clouded.

Although power cuts are hardly new in Egypt, no Egyptian government has tackled the problem seriously and transparently. After the January 25, 2011 uprising, Egyptians had less patience with the failures of state services and demanded change.

On August 9, 2014, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt began another chapter in its besieged political life.  The highest administrative court in Egypt, the Supreme Administrative Court, dissolved the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Court also liquidated all of the FJP’s assets in an effort to quash any further political ambitions and activities that the Brotherhood might have in Egypt.  The ruling—a calculated move conducted prior to upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for later this year—was an attempt

Within four months of the military’s ouster of Mohamed Morsi, one of the icons of liberalism serving in the new cabinet, Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, admitted to CNN that those who called for political reconciliation, like himself, were alienated by the political mood, where the very concept of reconciliation has become “a dirty word” in Egypt.

As the United States struggles to mobilize a coalition of allies including Turkey behind potential military action against the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS) in Syria, Turkey’s Iraq and Syria policies remain captive to ISIS and the 49 Turkish hostages it holds. Turkey might be key to the U.S. effort to confront ISIS, and it is in a very tough spot.

Several weeks ago an Islamist and jihadist alliance led by Ansar al-Sharia–a group with ties to Islamic State (formerly ISIS)–took control of Benghazi and declared an “Islamic Emirate.” A few days ago, an Islamist alliance took control of Tripoli’s main airport. These developments have come as a shock to the Egyptian government, which considers an Islamic state on Egypt’s 720-mile long western border an immediate threat to Egypt’s national security. This helps explain Egypt’s alleged role in recent airstrikes inside Libya coordinated with the United Arab Emirates.

Alexandria, like Cairo, is a mismanaged city with little to offer by way of basic services, much less cultural activities. But unlike Egypt’s insular, desert capital, it is a Mediterranean city, cooler, less polluted or crowded than Cairo (with just six million inhabitants), no longer a cosmopolitan hub but open to the world in material and other ways. There are signs here of a trend toward “social transformation”—a focus on the immediate surroundings, the city itself, to explore and expand its possibilities.