“There is indeed an expansion of ISIS in mainland Egypt,’’ confirms Horrowitz. These two attacks point to ‘’the fact that ISIS reorganised its operational capacities in mainland Egypt’’. It is no secret that the continued iron fist policy provides fertile ground for militant recruitment. A particularly painful, but revealing, scene, towards the end of the video, shows young children cheering on militants as they return from their 1 July attack.
But Egypt is dealing with a multiple front war when it comes to terror and problematically, Al-Qaeda is one of those fronts thus mirroring an international pattern of competition between ISIS and AQ. Yet, you will be hard pressed to find nary a mention of this, Al-Qaeda inspired, dynamic in mainstream Egyptian press and the deep state’s verbiage. Three attacks betray this competitive binary: the assassination of General Prosecutor Hisham Mubarak, the attack near the Helioplois Court and, more recently, an attack in Beheira, near Alexandria, which killed three and injured when a bomb went off near a bus carrying conscripts.
In the Egyptian zeitgeist, however, all these attacks are lumped together as the work of Islamist extremists that are, ultimately, according the government narrative, linked directly or indirectly to the Muslim Brotherhood. This sort of oversimplification and manipulation of facts is one of the chief reasons the government continues to lag behind in its fight against organised terror-well on its way to being an organised insurgency. To combat ISIS, which far outpaces its governmental opponent in understanding modern media, Horrowitz suggests a change in tactics. But that is not an easy task and many western state actors have failed. ‘’Egyptian army has to develop a new media strategy to counter ISIS propaganda,’’ because the old ways will no longer cut it against ‘’an actor like ISIS that has learned the codes of today’s PR’’. Put succinctly, the army needs to heed our mother’s warning about lies. From a rational standpoint, credibility is garnered most efficiently by relaying a facsimile as near to reality as possible. The Egyptian army must become “a reliable source for journalists”, said Horrowitz. Currently, it is not.
