Army will use ‘absolute force’ to end terrorism in Sinai: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

A picture taken on October 21, 2017 shows members of the Egyptian security forces resting on the top of an armored vehicle (APCs) parked on the desert road towards the Bahariya oasis in Egypt's Western desert. (AFP Photo)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi says the army will employ “absolute force” in a bid to eliminate terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula.

“We have to put an end to terrorism in Sinai. Sinai is our land, and the Armed Forces will employ absolute force to put an end to violence there. [We would rather] die than have anyone [harm] our land,” said the Egyptian president at a ceremony to inaugurate a number of development projects in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia on Saturday.

Sisi also stressed that the Egyptian people should not fear any external threat as long as they were united enough to challenge the whole world, saying, “We are neither wicked conspirators nor are we after anyone’s money or land. We only seek God’s generosity to continue building and developing.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

The Sinai Peninsula has been under a state of emergency since October 2014, after a deadly terrorist attack left 33 Egyptian soldiers dead.

Over the past few years, terrorists have been carrying out anti-government activities and fatal attacks, taking advantage of the turmoil in Egypt that erupted after the country's first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a military coup in July 2013.

The Velayat Sinai group, which is affiliated with the Daesh Takfiri terrorists, has claimed responsibility for most of the assaults. The group later expanded its attacks to target members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian community as well as foreigners visiting the country, prompting Cairo to widen a controversial crackdown, which critics say has mostly targeted dissidents.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Sisi also announced that his country would in the next two to three years embark on a $5.60 billion construction project in the volatile peninsula, whose south is peppered with Red Sea tourist resorts but its militancy-plagued northern parts is underdeveloped and lacks basic infrastructure and job opportunities.

“We have entrusted the ministry of housing and the engineering authority with a national project of comprehensive urban planning,” he said, adding that the projects would be carried out whether he remained in power as president or not. Egypt's presidential election is due to be held in the first half of 2018. Sisi, however, did not provide a start date, potential financial sources or specific details of what would be built under the project.