Renad Ghanem

Saudi Gazette



 

CAIRO – A large number of extremist groups were formed in Sinai during the rule of ousted president Mohamed Morsi.

According to the Egyptian media, the situation has changed in Sinai since June 30th, the day Morsi was ousted by his people. The Egyptian military and police are conducting extended operations in Sinai to combat terrorism in the region.

As Sinai is situated in a wide desert, it has a lack of security, which led it to become an epicenter for extremists to practice terrorism.

These groups target youth, especially the poor and uneducated and brainwash them into thinking that extremism is the path to heaven.

Saudi Gazette interviewed two people who were led to join these extremist groups, both left before committing any crimes.

Ali, An Egyptian who lives in a town away from Cairo joined the group but left them after two months.

He said, “I am a countryside citizen. In our culture, any bearded man is a religious and devoted man.”

He also said: “My knowledge of Islam is very weak. I didn’t pray before, but I wanted to be more religious and started praying in a small neighborhood mosque. A man who was watching me while I prayed, offered to help teach me Islam, I was very happy then.”

Ali thought he was on the right path. He said: “They convinced me that obeying the group leader is like obeying God, and any disobedience to him is disobedience to God.”

“They told me that jihad is the best thing I can do in this life. They taught me that everything is a secret. They taught me how to lie to the police and to my family, if any of them suspected that I was in an extremist group.”

At first, Ali’s family thought he became religious and were not aware that he was being exploited to join an extremist group.

According to Ali, his father is the one that brought him out of the darkness. He took him away from their town and sent him to Cairo. “I was blind during this time, I would have killed anyone if they asked me to,” he said.

Ali said: “My father was very understanding. He knew that I was brainwashed. He explained to me the difference between jihad and terrorism. He also told me that Islam is a religion of peace not violence.”

Ashraf, a 27-year-old Egyptian, was also misled to join an extremist group in his town. “I was led by a group of them who convinced me that everything in my life is ill-gotten, even obeying my parents,” he said.

"Step by step, I became a machine, I followed everything they asked me to do without thinking or understanding.”

Ashraf said they also ordered him not to eat with his family because their food and money is “haraam.”

He said: “As long as I was a member of the group, I had to eat with them and wear what they gave me. They said my family members were all infidels, and even if I saw them walking in the streets, I should not look at them.

I’m not sure why they targeted me, maybe because I was a student and needed money. I am not well educated, maybe if I was they would not have been able to brainwash me.”

Ashraf said at that time, he was convinced that he was on the pathway to heaven; he was ready to kill or steal, which contradicts Islamic law.

He said: “Even though I am Muslim, and the majority in my town are Muslims, they told me that anyone not in their group is an infidel and that their money belongs to us and we have every right to take it away from them.”

They told me we were born to perform jihad.

Ashraf began reading about Islam, even though the group tried convincing him that most of the sheikhs were infidels, especially the famous ones.

“When I started reading more, I learned that jihad is not about killing innocent souls, we were ordered by God to work, which is considered jihad,” he said.

Ashraf decided that he would ask the leader of the group questions that were concerning him. When he asked him the leader got angry and told him that his main duty was jihad, and if he refused to do so, he would be an infidel.

“I started to wonder what their source of income was, how did they make this money when no one in the group, including the leader worked,” He said.

He said: "We spent most of the week at the group’s site. They sometimes used to ask us not to come to the site, we knew later that unknown sources fund the group.”

Ashraf said he regretted being involved in such a group.

"They exploited the ignorance and poverty of people, especially the poor people because they provide them with everything,” Ashraf said.

"My parents didn't know that I joined such a group, but when they knew they did everything they could to take me out this group,” he said.

Ashraf said: “They threatened my father that they would kill me. I was told that they killed anyone who knew their secrets.”

“I now live in Cairo, they don’t know my place. It’s safer here because the police is more in control and I am under their protection,” He said.

Sameh Seif Al Yazal, an Egyptian Strategic Expert, said that the situation in Sinai is now being brought under control. He stressed that the Egyptian Armed Forces has vowed to eliminate terrorism in Egypt, especially in Northern Sinai.

Al Yazal said that Morsi’s regime plotted to create instability through terrorist acts in the Sinai region to prove that the country was safer during their reign.