Group items tagged

General Ibrahim Hammad of the Egyptian State Security Investigations Service (SSIS) took the opportunity of Egypt's briefing on regional and international terrorist activities to attack the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the political-social organization founded and centered in Egypt with branches and elements across the Middle East. In preface, Hammad observed that the core challenge in fighting terror in the region is ideological. Some groups maintain ideologies irreconcilable with modernity and the international order, Hammad asserted. Dialogue with extremist groups constitutes a reversal and a set back, he continued.

Moving on from the MB, Hammad said the GOE was gravely concerned by the challenges presented by the proliferation of extremist websites on the Internet. He acknowledged that Egypt was facing difficulty in adapting and responding to these new challenges that were consequences of rapid technological innovations. Terrorists are using the Internet to research plan and execute operations, he asserted. Hammad regretted the lack of international coordination and cooperation to quickly remove from the Internet extremist websites. "If we could shut these sites down we could reduce terrorist operations by 50 percent," he asserted.