Egypt’s President Backs Global Campaign Against Islamic State Extremists
NEW YORK—Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi pledged his support for the U.S. war against Islamic State militants, but called on PresidentBarack Obama to widen his campaign against extremism well beyond Iraq and Syria.
The former Egyptian military commander, in his first interview in the U.S. since formally taking power in June, also cautioned the administration against “washing its hands” of the Middle East at a time when the region’s borders are in flux and the threat of militancy is growing with the instability.
Mr. Sisi cited terrorist threats in Libya, Sudan, Yemen and the Sinai Peninsula as mirroring the danger posed to the Middle East and the West by Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL.
He also said he is pursuing economic development, education and the promotion of religious tolerance as tools that were just as important for neutralizing Islamic State and other radical groups as military strikes.
“We can’t reduce the danger lurking in the region to ISIL. We have to bear in mind all the pieces of the puzzle,” Mr. Sisi said in a nearly hourlong interview at a Manhattan hotel. “We can’t just limit the confrontation to checking and destroying the Islamic State.”
Mr. Sisi, 59 years old, is attending the annual United Nations General Assembly this week as a sort of coming out party for one of his region’s most important new leaders.
Since taking office, Egypt’s sixth president has cut energy subsidies in a bid to revitalize his country’s economy, continued a broad crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood movement and worked closely with Israel to broker a tenuous cease-fire with the Palestinian militant group and political party, Hamas.