El Sisi says plans afoot to celebrate defeat of extremists in Sinai Peninsula

Egyptian leader vows to ruthlessly crush anyone who takes up arms against the government again

Egyptian President El Sisi, who visited troops in the region on Saturday, says the country is planning a large celebration to mark the end of the insurgency Muslim extremists waged in the Sinai Peninsula. Photo: Abdelfattah Elsisi / TwitterShow less

Egypt is planning a large celebration to mark the end of the insurgency that extremists waged in the Sinai Peninsula, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said during a weekend visit to the region.

Mr El Sisi, a former army general, said the celebration would be held in Sinai “at the spot where Egyptian blood has been shed” and would be “proportionate to the sacrifices made”.

The president's comments, made during a visit on Saturday to troops in the Sinai region just east of the Suez Canal, amount to a declaration of victory over the extremists whose insurgency has dwindled in recent years to infrequent small-scale attacks.

Mr El Sisi also vowed that his government would continue to pour funds into Sinai to develop the 60,000-square kilometre region of desert and mountains, with Red Sea resort towns to the south and a sandy Mediterranean coastline to the north.

The President's office released video footage of his visit to Sinai on Saturday night.

It shows Mr Sisi sharing iftar, the first meal after Muslims break their Ramadan fast at sunset, with troops deployed in the region. Earlier in the day, he is seen chatting with infantrymen at a checkpoint about their families, the benefits of staying fit and learning while in active service.

“Remember 10 years ago when everyone was asking when will terrorism end? Well, it's finished, right?” the president says as he chats with the troops.

“One day, all this will be just history,” he said.

Mr El Sisi has said previously that the government would build a museum dedicated to the war against terrorism in Sinai, with displays of the weapons, ammunition and communications equipment seized from militants. He did not say when the museum would be built, or where.

A billboard bearing an image of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in Sharm El Sheikh, a popular Red Sea resort in the south of the Sinai Peninsula. AP

Mr El Sisi has repeatedly blamed the insurgency in Sinai on the chaos that engulfed Egypt following a 2011 uprising that ended the autocratic, 29-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak.

Muslim extremists have fought police and government troops in Sinai’s north-east corner for years, but the frequency and deadliness of their attacks increased after Mohammed Morsi, a member of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, was ousted from the presidency in 2013.

Morsi was in power for just a year when he was removed by the military, then led by Mr El Sisi, amid a wave of street protests against his divisive rule.

The Sinai insurgency has quietened significantly following a major military offensive launched in 2018, backed by tanks, fighters jets and helicopter gunships.

Squeezed out of their strongholds and shunned by local tribes, the extremists have since resorted to the abduction and execution of alleged army informants or tribesmen known to support the government. They have also targeted members of the small Christian community in Sinai and remote army posts.

Mr El Sisi said last month that Egypt's war against terrorism had cost the treasury at least one billion pounds (about $33 million) a month since 2011.

Last year, he said the army and police had lost 3,277 men fighting militants since 2013, with another 12,280 service members sustaining injuries that prevented them from returning to active duty.

“We will never again tolerate this … We will never let anyone raise a weapon against the state ever again because the price we paid was very high. We will be very, very ruthless with anyone who raises a weapon against the state,” Mr El Sisi said on Saturday.

Cars on Cairo highway pass beneath a billboard showing an advertisement for a 2022 television series in which actor Yasser Galal plays Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi. AFP

“The fighting here was nothing less than all the fighting Egypt did over the years. What was done in this war is not less than what was done in the October war,” he said on Saturday, alluding to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war when Egyptian troops stormed Israeli defences on the east bank of the Suez Canal in Sinai.

The last war between Egypt and Israel, the 1973 conflict is hailed by Egyptians as a historic triumph that avenged the country’s humiliating loss of the Sinai Peninsula to Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.