CAIRO: Egypt has welcomed a US designation of two militant groups targeting Egyptian security and public figures as “terrorist” groups.
The US State Department labeled the Hasm movement and Liwaa El-Thawra as “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” groups on Wednesday, which blocks any assets they may have in US jurisdictions and bars Americans from making financial transactions with them.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday the move is “a positive development” and “a practical display of solidarity with Egypt against terrorism.”
Egyptian authorities believe they are splinter factions of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that Egypt has outlawed since 2013. The US says some leaders of the two groups were previously associated with the Brotherhood.
Militant attacks have surged since the military’s 2013 ouster of President Mohammed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood figure.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian army is bulldozing homes and olive groves to build a buffer zone around the airport in its troubled North Sinai Province, where Daesh group militants targeted the defense and interior ministers in December.
The operation will displace thousands, according to local residents who have been told they will be removed from at least a dozen hamlets around El-Arish airport. They say they are being moved to nearby cities where the government has promised them compensation.
El-Arish is the main airport in the region but has been closed to the public for more than three years. However, it is used when high-ranking officials travel to North Sinai. The new fortifications underline how the army is digging in for a longer-term insurgency that shows no sign of abating, despite years of fighting in which hundreds of soldiers have been killed. They will stretch 5 km around three sides and 1.5 km to the north, Egypt’s state news agency quoted North Sinai Gov. Abdel Fatah Harhour as saying.
Buffer zone
In what amounts to the latest escalation, Defense Minister Sedki Sobhy and Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar, who is in charge of police, were in El-Arish on an unannounced visit Dec. 19 when a missile struck their helicopter. Although they were not in the aircraft, the missile killed an officer and wounded two others.
President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi ordered the creation of the zone outside the airport walls two weeks ago, and it is unclear if it will eventually contain fences or other obstacles.
The buffer zone will destroy dozens of hamlets around the airport, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes for an unknown future, sparking some protest by residents despite the government promises of compensation.
Two residents who own olive groves in the area said the army told them to prepare to leave shortly after the helicopter attack, adding that they don’t want to but felt powerless.
“We don’t know where we will go. The airport has been closed for years. Why they don’t move it to another area,” said a resident.
The airport periphery, especially the south, needed to be cleared in order to eliminate hiding spots that have been used in past attacks by IS militants, two military officials said.
They use the farmlands “as a safe haven and a base to carry out attacks against forces,” one said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.
Ashraf el-Hefny, a 51-year-old teacher and local community organizer, said hundreds of families are leaving their homes to an unknown future location. “The bulldozers have already started to raze the olive groves, rooting out every green leaf in the area,” he said.
Another resident, Ayman el-Rotil, 48, said that “many” homes had been demolished quickly after bulldozers showed up, giving people barely enough time to gather their belongings.